Take Two
by Rennes
Summary: Since apparently incapacitating the senses of an opponent is against the rules, Coach Ryuzaki must take dramatic measures to determine who is the true winner of the final championship match between Seigaku and Rikkaidai.
1. No More Fog Machines

****

Take Two

* * *

XxXxX

* * *

"See? There it is! Right between 'no jewelry' and 'no drugs'!"

"Oh, this is dreadful! You were right after all!"

"Is there a problem?" Asked Yukimura in a silky voice.

"Yeah," Coach Ryuzaki looked up at the two teams Seigaku and Rikkaidai from where she and Kirihara had been examining the rule book of tennis. "We were just reading through this book, and it turns out that incapacitating one or more senses of the opponent is actually against the rules."

"Wouldn't have dreamed it possible!" said Yukimura. "But the match is over now. What does it matter?"

"Well, it lends a sort of invalidity to your ultimate championship tennis match with Ryoma, since cheating was going on." Ryuzaki explained.

"But why do we care if Yukimura cheated?" Echizen cut in, "I won anyway."

"Don't get too excited," warned Kirihara, "It looks like fog machines aren't allowed either, so you cheated, too."

"It wasn't a fog machine, it was Muga no Kyouchi!!" Echizen screamed.

Everyone ignored him. His story made no sense.

"So what do you propose we do about this?" Tezuka finally asked. "This basically renders the final match between Echizen and Yukimura invalid. So who wins the championship?"

"Maybe we should have a rematch," Suggested Yukimura hopefully.

"Why so eager?" Echizen retorted. "I'll just win again, won't I?"

"Not necessarily," Yukimura replied, looking mildly annoyed, "I feel quite confident about my chances this time. After all, apparently all I had to do the whole time was fucking say, "tennis is fun"."

"Well, this isn't up to you guys!" Ryuzaki interrupted. "I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not confident about my ability to watch another match between those two and not die of boredom, cliché overdose, or old age. We need an alternate solution."

"Like what?" Everyone asked suspiciously.

"Hmmm....." Ryuzaki thought. "Give me a few minutes. I'll think it over."

When she came back from her deliberation, Ryuzaki wore a strange smile that instantly alerted all the boys present that whatever was to follow would mean a gigantic pile of horrors in their futures.

"I have great news," she said, "I've had a wonderful idea! I've thought of a great way to determine the winner of the championship!"

"We're screwed, aren't we?" asked Echizen.

"Yup!" she said. "It's my most brilliant plan yet, if I do say so myself!"

"You might as well, because I can assure you no one else is going to." Tezuka said.

"Tezuka, shut up before I break your other shoulder." Ryuzaki said, without even looking at him.

Tezuka shrugged.

"So," said Ryuzaki, stretching, "here's the idea: since we obviously can't count the match between Echizen and Yukimura, the championship is left hanging. Thus, I'm going to set up a series of challenges that each team will have to participate in. You will work your way through these challenges, being judged along the way, and at the end I will evaluate which team did the best over all, and that team wins the tennis championship!"

The boys, who had been holding in their feelings up until then, fell to the ground and tore at their hair.

"Oh, it's more terrible than I could ever have imagined!" Marui screamed, eyes streaming.

"Come, it's not all that bad." Said Ryuzaki. "Since you guys screwed up the final match, this is the fairest way to determine the winner. We're just sort of...taking two. And I'm sure it will end up being fun."

"FOR _YOU!_" Everyone screamed.

Ryuzaki seemed unfazed. "I haven't even got to the next part yet," she said. "I can already tell that I'm going to get bored of you guys relatively soon. Thus, we're going to have to spice these challenges up by bringing in some special guests."

"Guests?" the two teams echoed.

Ryuzaki snapped her fingers. Out of nowhere pranced Atobe, Sengoku, Tachibana, Aoi, Akazawa and Shiraishi.

"So to make things a little more interesting, you're all going to have to pick other teams to be a part of your team for later participation." Ryuzaki announced, beaming at the looks of horror on the faces of the Rikkaidai and Seigaku boys. "We'll do it gym class style: each captain stands in a line and we'll take turns picking so that the last person chosen feels bad. It'll be swell."

As if on cue, the captains marched before them and they lined themselves up neatly side by side.

"Right." Said Ryuuzaki, "Rikkaidai and Seigaku, you have to nominate one person from your team, preferably the wisest, to choose your entourage. Have quick tryouts if you must. Make it snappy."

Rikkaidai unanimously chose Yukimura in three seconds. Seigaku couldn't quite decide, so they had each member give quick inspirational speeches as to why he should be chosen. Fuji went first.

"Right," said Fuji, "well, since I'm going first anyway, and it's already three o'clock, why don't we just save some time with these tryouts?" He opened his eyes. "Let me be the picker or I'll kill you all in your sleep."

"...right. Who votes for Fuji?" Tezuka asked in a shaky voice. Everyone raised his hand.

"Well, isn't that nice?" said Fuji. He and Yukimura stepped away from their teams and stood shoulder to shoulder. "Great work," Said Ryuzaki, "Now all that's left is for you to pick your teams. We'll flip a coin to decide who gets to choose first."

"If you have a coin, why don't you just flip it to decide who wins the match!!!??" Everyone screamed.

Ryuzaki laughed. "Oh come now," she said, chuckling, "_that_ would just be silly."

They all slapped their foreheads.

She continued, "anyway, I'm going to flip now, so let's call it. Tails for Seigaku because people from Seigaku have tails."

No one wanted to ask what that meant.

She flipped and it was heads.

"Alright, Rikkaidai chooses first." She concluded.

"Hyoutei," said Yukimura immediately, smiling radiantly.

"Very well. Atobe, move," said Ryuzaki, "Fuji, it's your turn."

The rest of the Seigaku team tried to give him advice from the sidelines.

"Remember, Fuji, this choice affects the whole team!" Oishi hissed desperately, "Please choose wisely!"

"Hmmm." Fuji put one hand to his chin. "St. Rudolph."

"God damn it!" Yuuta cursed and Syuusuke smiled more brilliantly than ever and beckoned the team over.

"Wow. Really strange choice," said Ryuzaki, "and now Rikkaidai chooses again."

"You don't need to narrate," Tezuka pointed out. "It's pretty obvious what's going on."

"That's what she said," said Ryuzaki.

"She got you there," Oishi said reasonably.

"Fudomine." Said Yukimura, completely unfazed by all the madness that was going on around him.

"I guess I should have mentioned," said Ryuzaki as Tachibana went to join the Rikkaidai side, "it's not necessarily in your best interests to pick the strongest tennis teams. The challenges that you will be encountering could range from a sports game, a song, to anything. In other words, the challenges could be any sort of random shit. You want to pick the teams that you think will contribute what your team lacks. The best teams to pick would be the ones that you feel could offer the most creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness."

"Fudomine." Said Yukimura again.

"And just for the record, 'creativity', 'innovation', and 'resourcefulness' all mean more or less the same thing," Yanagi muttered under his breath.

"Back to Seigaku," Ryuzaki unnecessarily narrated.

"Fuji......" the rest of the Seigaku team looked close to tears, "_Please_ choose well. We desperately need a strong team. _Please_ pick the one that can contribute the most to our team....."

"Rokkaku." said Fuji.

There was utter silence and one could hear crickets chirping. Tezuka fainted.

"What?" said Fuji. "I like Saeki."

"Thanks, Fuji." Said Saeki.

"You're welcome." Said Fuji.

"Last pick, Rikkaidai." Said Ryuzaki. "Which team do you want?"

"Shintenhouji. Obviously." Said Yukimura. "Their strengths are all of Seigaku's weaknesses."

"Good pick." Said Ryuzaki. "Sorry Seigaku, looks like you're stuck with Yamabuki."

She shoved Sengoku over in the direction of Seigaku. "Awww." Said Yamabuki, trooping over to Seigaku's side, sad at being chosen last.

"Great line up." Said Ryuzaki. "We'll call you Team One and Team Two for now because I can't think of anything better."

"Who's Team One?" demanded Eiji.

"I don't know." Ryuzaki shrugged and pointed at Rikkaidai. "They are. It doesn't matter."

"Well, why do _they_ get to be Team One?" Eiji cried. "That's lowering our egos right off the bat!"

"They can be Team One if they want," Yukimura graciously offered.

"Okay, okay," Ryuzaki started to get pissed off, "New idea: Rikkaidai will be Team Nice Guys and you, Seigaku, will be Team Douchebags."

"Awww." The Seigaku team chorused.

"But anyway, here's the line up," said Ryuzaki. "Rikkaidai's team is composed of Rikkaidai, Hyoutei, Shintenhouji, and Fudomine. Seigaku's team is Seigaku, Yamabuki, Rokkaku, and St. Rudolph. In other words, one of the teams rocks and the other one completely sucks."

"I wonder which is which," Momoshiro wondered aloud.

"I wonder why no one from the other schools is talking," mused Kirihara.

"Yeah, about that..." said Ryuzaki. "There's definitely going to be some rationing of the speaking roles going on, because if everyone talks an equal amount all the time, I'll go crazy."

"How exactly do you ration speaking?" Yagyuu asked.

"You can only have a significant speaking part if you're directly involved in the challenge." Ryuzaki explained. "That ought to cut down on the number of speakers significantly."

"So we won't all be competing together?" Oishi asked cautiously.

"Gods, no." said Ryuzaki. "Maybe every now and then. But mostly, we'll have challenges that only involve certain groups of people. For example, we might have a challenge only for people with black hair or something. However, there's one condition: there must always be at least one person from both Seigaku and Rikkaidai participating. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to have random people competing while the people it affects just watch. Basically, you won't necessarily all be working on challenges together with your team even though you're one group."

"Then what was the point of dividing us into teams?" Jackal asked.

"So that you could develop a feeling of comraderie." Said Ryuzaki, looking mildly annoyed. "And I already said, you _are_ one with your team, it's just that the teams are so big that it would be chaos to have them all compete at once. Although I _do_ like chaos....." she trailed off thoughtfully and everyone gulped.

"Well anyway," she said, "challenges start tomorrow. You'll all meet here at nine thirty sharp for the first challenge. You should spend tonight getting to know eachother. Any questions?"

Tachibana raised his hand. "Since teams besides Seigaku and Rikkaidai are getting nothing out of this, what's the motivation for us to work and help our teams?" he asked shrewdly.

"That's the tricky part." Said Ryuzaki. "Obviously, people from Rikkaidai and Seigaku want to work hard because their championship depends on it, but for the other teams, you're going to have to find some sort of inspiration from your teammates. And cheating is perfectly allowed."

"How do we cheat?"

"You could help the other team, for example," she suggested, shrugging. "but that's not really the point. If your team wins, not only do we decide who wins the championship, but you will have been a part of that decision. Doesn't that make you feel good?"

"Not really." said Tachibana.

"Oh. Well, screw you then. That's something you can deliberate tonight with your teams." She said.

"Fine." said everyone moodily. This day was sucking more and more by the second.

"Any other questions?" Ryuzaki asked. "No? Great. Then get the hell out of here. I've talked enough for today."

"What, that's it?" Yagyuu asked sarcastically, "We've got the dry facts and now we've got to go? No words of inspiration or love from you?"

"What, were you expecting a soliloquy? Just get lost!"

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *


	2. Fighting Spirit

**Fighting Spirit**

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**At Yukimura's House:**

"May I have everyone's attention? Please? That would be just _great_. Thanks."

Yukimura waited for everyone in his conference room to quiet down before he continued,

"So despite how weird it all sounds, it looks like we four schools are now one team working together to beat Seigaku in the finals. We already know that we're going to be challenged in twisted, annoying, and most likely sick ways, but we need to band together in order to assure victory."

"What's in it for us?" Tachibana interrupted. "If this team wins the overall set of challenges, then Rikkaidai wins the final, but the rest of us are getting nothing out of this!"

Yukimura smiled sweetly. "I _completely_ understand your concerns," he said, looking directly at Tachibana with understanding eyes. "I see why it might be difficult for units Fudomine, Hyoutei, and Shintenhouji to understand why they should help Rikkaidai. But what you've got to realize is that everything is connected."

Everyone exchange confused looks.

"Yes, everything is connected," Yukimura continued. "This is the one thing that I realized during my intense period of hospitalization. Which was, by the way, extremely intense and terrible. I realized that there is no 'I' and no 'you'. There is only 'we'. Everything we do affects one another because we're all part of the same circle of events. You might think that helping us win has nothing to do with you, but in a few days, a few weeks, or a few years, you might suddenly see how it was all connected!"

Everyone stared blankly.

"....yeah, I still don't see it," said Shishido finally.

"And Ore-sama is starting to think that this is all just bullshit," Atobe added.

"Oh, right! That brings me to my next point!" Yukimura remembered. "From now on, I think that if Atobe refers to himself as 'Ore-sama', we should all just ignore him."

"What does that have to do with _anything_?" Shiriashi asked.

"I dunno, I just had to get that out there," said Yukimura pleasantly. "It's like one of those things that has been bothering me for the longest time, but then whenever I'm giving a speech or something, I always forget to mention it."

"Ah, I know what you mean!" exclaimed Gakuto, nodding vigorously. "It's hilarious at home, but somehow when I'm in company, I always forget to tell my cactus joke!"

Everyone stared at him.

Gakuto stared back fiercely for about thirty seconds, then broke under the pressure and looked away.

"You think a lot when you're in a hospital bed," Yukimura said, drawing the attention back to himself. "And I figured some stuff out during my horrible and intense time of hospitalization for a disease that was horrible and intense. You see, when you say something mean to someone, that person gets sad. And then they might say something mean to someone else. And then that person might spread the bad feeling, and so on and so forth. Don't you see? The only way everyone can be happy is if everyone works together to spread good feelings around the world!"

Yukimura paused for a breath. "Life is one big doughnut. You eat your way around until you end up right back where you started. And then you realize that there was a hole in the middle the whole time, so life never had a meaning anyway!"

"Wow. That's depressing," said Kamio.

"The only thing you can really do in life is make a meaning for yourself. Try to find something worth fighting for. That's why you have to realize that love is the only thing that counts. You guys want to help us win because you _care_ about us."

Dead silence.

"_Anyway_," continued Yukimura, "if you all help out and are nice, I'll buy you guys cupcakes after we win."

"_Now_ you're talking sense!" said Shinji. "I'm in."

"Me too!"

"Yeah!"

Everyone started consenting.

"Will the cupcakes have sprinkles on them?" asked Atobe suspiciously.

"Of course they will," said Yukimura, smiling genially. "They can even have frosting in the shape of your favorite farm animal if you like."

"Yay!" everyone cheered. They all started talking amongst themselves about how hard they were all going to work in the challenges.

"I got to admit," Sanada mumbled, "you've still got your touch, Yukimura."

"Well, of course I do, Gen-chan," he said. "Even if I _was_ stuck in a hospital for an intense and debilitating period of nine months, which was, incidentally, intense and debilitating."

The Rikkaidai team sighed.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

**Tezuka's House:**

"You guys, Seigaku is known as the greatest team in the entirety of Japan," Tezuka shouted. "And I'm not going to let anything jeopardize that! We're going to win whether you like it or not!"

"Yeah!" said the Seigaku team. Then they looked around.

None of the other teams were listening to them. The St. Rudolph-ites and Yamabukians had taken over Tezuka's video game system and all the Rokkaku boys were outside, somehow in their swimsuits, and playing in Tezuka's pool.

"You guys, this is serious!" Tezuka bellowed. "We really have to win! We have to show them who's best!"

"I totally agree!" shouted Sengoku, his eyes glued to the T.V. screen. "If I don't win, everyone's going to think that Mewtwo is better than Pikachu, which is SO not true!"

"Listen to Tezuka!" Momoshiro roared. "This is really important!"

"I'll bet it is, but just wait for me to own this noob," said Mizuki, fighting a vicious match against Ichiuma.

"You guys totally aren't taking this seriously!" Oishi cried. "I know that you aren't really getting anything out of our victory, but seriously, this team is going nowhere if people from Seigaku are the only ones who care about the challenges!"

"Where did Fuji go?" Echizen suddenly asked.

They all looked around, and finally located him outside, playing with a pool noodle with Saeki.

"Fuji! If you don't take _your own_ championship seriously, how can you expect anyone else to!?!" Eiji cried, stamping his feet on the rosy patio. "We have to win this match for Seigaku, or we'll look like such losers! We have to save face!"

"Put on some sunscreen!" David shouted from the other end of the pool.

Eiji stuck out his tongue at him.

"Sorry, Eiji, it just looked like so much fun," said Fuji, smiling brilliantly at his friend as he flipped onto his back and started floating. "I'll be back in a sec; you guys go on without me.....hey, Saeki, stop that! It tickles!"

Fuji started giggling like a schoolgirl, which clued the others that it was time to run if they didn't want to be scarred for life.

Tezuka shut himself and the other Seigaku regulars besides Fuji in his bedroom.

"Okay, this isn't working......" Said Tezuka, pacing back and forth. "Obviously none of the other teams care whether we win or not. We're going to have to find some way of either inspiring them or terrifying them."

"Why inspire or terrify?" Eiji asked.

"In history we see that those are the only two incentives that yield results," Inui said.

"I think 'inspire' would be more suited to our needs," Tezuka said, rubbing his temples. "It's probably the easiest path for us to follow. Everyone brainstorm for how we could inspire them."

There was silence for about five minutes as everybody thought.

"....any ideas?" Tezuka asked.

"Nope," mumbled everyone.

"You guys are worthless!" Tezuka exclaimed in disgust.

"Actually, I think that we might consider trying to scare them," Inui suggested. "That always works for me."

"And the fear of punishment is a greater motive than the promise of a reward," Kaidoh added.

"So what am I supposed to do? Threaten to kill them all if they don't comply?" Tezuka shouted, losing his mind, "Drown them in the lava of an erupting volcano? Tear their hair out and make voodoo dolls with it? Smother them with a pair of house slippers? Blend them into smoothies? Grate them over a giant pasta? Rip—"

"Um, is this a bad time?" Sengoku stood at the doorway.

Tezuka hastily spun around. "Yes it is! I mean, no! Anytime is fine if it's for you guys! What is it?"

"Well....um, there's....ah......"

"What?"

"There's a little problem downstairs," said Sengoku, blushing.

**XxX**

"I was just trying to make cookies, I swear!" cried Aoi tearfully, forty minutes later. "I was just trying to turn on the oven! I swear, I didn't know that that was actually the button to destroy the entire house!"

"Didn't you read the sign that said **'do not touch'**!?!" Tezuka bellowed.

"I thought it was reverse psychology!" Aoi sobbed. "Like, you say, 'don't touch it', but what you really mean is that you want people to touch it!"

Words failed Tezuka. He just stared at Aoi and then walked away.

Tezuka's house was now a heap of ashes and a burnt frame. Aoi had pressed some button that was meant for use when chemical experiments were taking place in the kitchen. When Aoi had pressed the button, a stream of Butyl chloride had shot out of a valve in the oven that Aoi had turned on, causing an immediate fire. Sengoku had informed Tezuka of the problem as soon as the fire started, but it was too strong for the boys to handle, and the entire house had burnt down in about ten minutes. The best that the boys could do was call 911 and then evacuate the house.

"That's some very stupid shit you did, Son," said a fireman to Aoi. "Butyl chloride is extremely flammable. You should never play with it."

"Why do you even _have_ that button?" Fuji asked Tezuka.

"It was for chemistry experiments!" Tezuka yelled. "And the average IQ in my household is over 200, so I wasn't expecting the valve to ever be a problem!"

He grated his teeth together furiously. "Are you guys happy now? You've refused to help me win the championship and now I'm homeless, too! I didn't even get a chance to save my stamp collection....." His voice cracked, and he turned away from the other boys, so they wouldn't see him tearing up.

There was a sad silence, and then Saeki stepped forward.

"Well, I for one feel terrible," he said. "I never wanted such a misfortune to take place. For being part of this careless mistake, I pledge my efforts to helping Seigaku win the championship. I know I can't bring your house back, but I'll do everything I can to help you."

"You're so noble, Saeki!" cried Fuji. "I pledge to help, too!"

"Well, didn't you want to win _anyway_?" everyone chorused.

Fuji shrugged.

"No, but seriously, we'll all help," said Yuuta. "We feel bad."

"Yes. Seigaku will win. Seigaku _will win_!" teams Rokkaku, St. Rudolph, and Yamabuki chanted. "Gooooooo......SEIGAKU!" they all cheered.

"You hear that?" Oishi whispered to Tezuka. "They're ready to work! We've done it! We've rallied them!"

"And all it took was...." Kaidoh began.

"For me to lose all my possessions and my family to become homeless," Tezuka finished. "Yes, this is definitely an excellent start."

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *


	3. General Knowledge

**General Knowledge **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

The two teams convened in some random spot at nine thirty sharp the next morning. Tezuka showed up wearing jeans and a casual tee shirt.

"Oh, wow! I don't think I've ever seen Tezuka in anything other than a collared shirt!" Ryuzaki exclaimed.

Everyone sniggered.

"And pants!" she shouted angrily. "A collared shirt and pants! Obviously! Jeez, you guys are so immature......."

"Actually, these aren't my clothes; they're Oishi's," Tezuka explained.

"And why are you wearing Oishi's clothes, may I ask?" Ryuzaki asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Tezuka stood silently.

"....It's because his house burned down yesterday and he lost all his possessions," Sengoku said finally.

"Oh. Really? Well, you should get some new clothes then. You look dumb." said Ryuzaki, looking down at her clipboard.

The rest of the boys mouthed wordlessly at her insensitivity.

"Okay!" she said, looking up. "You know how yesterday I said that you guys would rarely be working on challenges together as an entire team?"

They nodded.

"Well, this is an exception. Since it's the first challenge, everyone is going to be participating in today's activity."

Everyone groaned. Tezuka raised his hand.

"I was actually thinking that maybe I could apply for a sob-story excuse," he said.

"What the hell is that?" Ryuzaki asked.

"Like....something bad happened to me, so I request to be excused from today's challenge. Does that count?"

"That depends. What happened to you?" she asked.

"Sengoku already told you. My house burned down," Tezuka said.

"Then, no." she said.

"What? But that's tragic as hell!"

"For Gods sake, Tezuka it's one freaking challenge!" Ryuzaki shouted. "If you'd prefer, I could just hand the championship over to Rikkaidai right now!"

"No," said Tezuka sulkily.

"Good." said Ryuzaki flatly. "Now, like I was saying before Tezuka wasted everyone's time, the first challenge today is going to be a full group one; kind of like an ice breaking experience.

"Oh, _goody_," said Yagyuu.

"Also, since it's the first challenge and you're all in it, I'm going to make it fairly easy and straightforward for you guys. Today's challenge is simply a written test."

"Only?" Inui straightened up and adjusted his glasses. "This might not suck as much as I thought it would."

"In this test, you're going to be questioned about general knowledge that everyone should know, being alive. That being said, you're a complete idiot if you don't know the answers to any of these questions. If that's not putting too much pressure on you, then I might add that for every wrong answer you write, someone on your team of my choice will get whipped."

"_Whipped_?" Kaidoh asked incredulously.

"Yes. What's the big deal? Stop looking at me like I'm Akutsu after the match with Ryoma or something!"

"Don't you think that's a little harsh?" asked Shishido.

"Not when you consider how long it took me to write these tests," she said.

"No one asked you to write them! In fact, I think everyone wishes you hadn't!" Jackal called.

Ryuzaki continued like she couldn't hear them,

"There are only ten questions on the test and I'm giving you thirty minutes to complete it, which is ridiculously generous. When you're done, I will be grading them with the help of Coach Sakaki."

At this point, coach Sakaki walked onto the scene from nowhere and all the Hyoutei boys snapped to attention.

"You didn't say there would be more than one judge!" Choutarou cried. "And he's our tennis coach! That puts on a lot more pressure!"

"Oh, didn't I mention that yesterday?" Ryuzaki asked in surprise, looking around.

Everyone looked at her blankly.

"I guess I forgot to tell you," she said, "one more rule about this is that in every challenge, you will of course be judged by me, but each challenge will also have one guest judge of my choice; preferably someone who has some experience in the field at hand."

"What does Sakaki know about multiple choice tests?" Hiyoshi asked dubiously.

"Hiyoshi, shut up," said Sakaki.

"So anyway, I'm going to hand out the tests now." Ryuzaki continued. "Once you get them, you are to be absolutely silent and complete them alone."

Marui raised his hand.

"Yes, what is it?" Ryuzaki asked impatiently.

"Is this like that one episode of Naruto where there's a test that the proctors say not to cheat on, but really you're supposed to cheat on it?" Marui asked, snapping his gum.

Ryuzaki stared at him.

".......no."

"Oh. Okay."

"How is this an ice breaker if we can't work together?" Kamio wanted to know.

"You can......talk after you're done!" Ryuzaki snapped. "Anything else?"

"How will our teams be judged?" Yanagi asked.

"I'll evaluate how you all did on the test, and then the team whose members did better overall wins the challenge," Ryuzaki said very quickly. She seemed to be getting very annoyed with all the questions. "Now no more questions! Everyone sit down and take out a pen and wait for your test!"

"I didn't know we had a test today; I don't have a pen!" complained Dan.

"Oh, get the hell out of here!" she shouted.

He happily got up and left.

"Hey, why does _he_ get to leave?" the other teams instantly complained.

"You guys, I swear to God: if anyone says another word, I'll invite back the American tennis team from the anime series and force you guys to hang out with them!"

That shut everyone up. Ryuzaki seemed serious.

She handed out the tests quickly and then stepped back to stand with Sakaki and proctor the exam. Everyone sighed and looked down at the test.

* * *

**Coaches Ryuzaki Sumire and Sakaki Taro….  
Most Awesome Tennis Coaches in the Entire Universe...  
Who Are Super Good at Everything…  
And Who Write the most Bestest and Concise Tests Ever…  
Are Proud to Present……**

_Test Of Ordinarily Landed Standards (T.O.O.L.S)_

_A comprehensive guide to how much you rock or suck_

**PART ONE: General Knowledge **

"You're kidding. You split it up into different parts?" asked Atobe in disbelief.

"What's so surprising about that?" Ryuzaki asked defensively.

"It's ten freaking questions!" they all shouted.

"You're interrupting the flow of the test! Back to work!"

They all sighed. **  
**

1) What 1965 comedy was Woody Allen's debut film? ____________________________________

2) C10H15NO is the compound for which primary molecule of the plant Ma Huang? ________________________________________

The first derivative of 47x3+19x2-7x+23= ______________________

**PART TWO: Anime**

3) L from Death Note's favorite food is _______________________

4) Which episodes of Prince of Tennis can be safely skipped without detracting any meaning from the plot? ___ to ___

5) Which anime holds the world record for filler episodes that add absolutely nothing to the plot and just waste over a year of everyone's time? __________

6) In Fruits Basket, the character whose zodiac sign is a cow is

A. Yuki  
B. Kyo  
C. Hatsuharu  
D. Hatori  
E. Ayame

**PART THREE: Reading Comprehension **

Directions: Read the excerpt below and then answer the questions that follow (No kidding! 'Cause I totally wouldn't have guessed that that's what 'reading comprehension' meant…)

_Among the many ferocious and wild beasts of Africa (and there are many ferocious, wild beasts), none is more bloodthirsty or terrifying that the infamous Googlypasha bunny rabbit. Though the name tends to inspire humor rather than fear in those who hear it, the Googlypasha bunny rabbit is not to be underestimated. In the year of 2008 alone, this bunny has been the leading cause of death among Africans ages four to sixty six and three months. Aside from its brilliant coat, which is so unbelievably resplendent that it instantly kills anyone who looks at it, and its poisonous fangs that kill anyone they touch, the Googlypasha bunny rabbit is in fact, so terrifying in concept that anyone who thinks about it carelessly instantly dies. For this reason, much remains unknown about the rabbit, such as what it looks like, where it lives, its patterns of behavior, etc. etc. However, scientists feel sure that in years to come, the Googlypoosha bunny rabbit will not only be successfully looked at, but people will even be able to think about it without dying. Funding for this cause has risen significantly this year. Russian biologist Yori Andropovovitch writes, "Scientists have come a long way in the sensing of these great and terrible creatures of Africa. I think that we can expect to be able to think of them without dying in a matter of years. This may be the most important scientific advancement since the first men stepped on the sun a few months ago."_

_-Dr. Andrea Cakesburner, June 5, 2009 _

8) Dr. Cakesburner's attitude towards the African Googlypasha bunny rabbit can best be described as…

A. uninterested  
B. somewhat interested  
C. quite interested  
D. politely interested  
E. unbelievably interested

9) If you were to meet a Googlypoosha bunny rabbit, you would…

A. run  
B. pet it  
C. do nothing  
D. laugh  
E. PSYCH! If you thought about this question, then you're dead because you thought about the bunny! Hahaha!

10) This passage could best be improved by the deletion of which sentence?

A. Sentences 5-end  
B. Sentence 1  
C. All the even sentences  
D. All the odd sentences  
E. The whole passage ought to be deleted

* * *

Everyone stared at the test after reading it through the first time. The average blood pressure of the group raised by a few…points or numbers or whatever blood pressure is measured in.

_How the __**hell**__ is the name of the __C__10__H__15__NO compound __**general knowledge**__?_ Momoshiro thought frantically. _Not even advanced Chemistry students knew that!_

Everyone on Team Nice Guys shot glances at Yanagi, and everyone on Team Douchebags looked at Inui. It was obvious that they were the only two who knew any of these answers.

The next thirty minutes were basically a subtle scuffle. People sitting closest to Yanagi and Inui on either team had to try to discreetly look off their papers, and then share those answers with those sitting around them, and so forth. It was basically a test of who could cheat better.

Oishi paused, biting his lip, before accepting the answers from Eiji. Only the realization that his entire team would hate him if he didn't do well was fueling him to continue.

"Right! Time is up!" Ryuzaki called abruptly at the thirty-minute mark. "Everyone hand in your papers now!"

There was a flurry of motion as everyone ran to turn in his test to Ryuzaki.

She scanned them quickly.

"Okay, everyone from Seigaku's team fails," she said immediately.

"What?! Why!?" They all screamed.

She held up the papers for everyone to see. "I don't remember you all changing your names to 'Sadaharu Inui'."

"Aw! Jeez........." They all slapped their foreheads.

"Oh, how could I have been so silly!?" Sengoku, who had been sitting closest to Inui, cried. "Of course when you're copying a test, you're not to supposed to copy _every_ _single_ word!"

"Oh, the shame!" said Oishi tearfully. "And now I'm a cheater to boot!"

"How could we all be so blind......"

The Rikkaidai team looked on in awe.

"......what complete _idiots_!" said Niou finally, in shocked amazement.

Yukimura nodded sagely. "It's not often you come across a band of morons like that, so pure and untouched."

"I guess this means that Rikkaidai wins by default," said Ryuzaki. "If for no other reason than because they all wrote their own names at the tops of their papers."

"Yay." Team Nice Guys said unenthusiastically.

"Do we get cupcakes now?" asked Kintaro.

"No, not yet," said Yukimura, with a slight edge to his voice. "And that's the seventh time you've asked me since last night."

"Awww," Kintaro's eyes started to bubble with tears.

"Here, you can have a smiley face in the meantime," said Yukimura, pulling out a blue pen and drawing a smiley face on Kintaro's hand. "But let this be enough until we win the final championship. _Then_ you get cupcakes."

"Oh, alright," said Kintaro, examining his new smiley face. "Hey, it's pretty cool!" he said.

Sanada and a few other boys were shooting jealous looks at Kintaro's smiley face, but Yukimura had already put away the pen and they were too embarrassed to ask him to take it out again and draw smileys for them.

"Okay, so Rikkaidai- 1, Seigaku- negative 3," said Ryuzaki. "What a great first challenge."

"Wait a minute, how are we already in the negatives?" asked Oishi, bewildered.

"Because not only did you fail the test, but you made it painfully obvious that you had cheated. And also, I don't like you guys."

"What?! But you're our coach! You should be biased in favor of us!"

"That's why Sakaki's here," explained Ryuzaki. "The guest judges are partly to ensure that there isn't just one judge being biased."

"So, what does Sakaki say about our tests?" Bane demanded.

"Actually, _he_ was the one who said you should get negative points," said Ryuzaki.

There was a collective sigh. "Okay, we give up," said Echizen. "Now I wanna see someone get whipped.

"Actually, you guys got all these questions right," said Ryuzaki, scanning the test. "So I don't have to whip anyone."

"Oh. Well _that's_ anticlimactic," said Fuji moodily.

"Oh, don't worry: someone's definitely going to get whipped eventually. Just not necessarily today."

"This was officially the worst first challenge ever." Saeki said. "I mean, if I sat down with a paper and pen and _tried_ to come up with a worst first challenge, I don't think I could do it."

"Yeah, well, it was more of an aptitude test anyway," said Ryuzaki shrugging. "Now I sort of know where you guys stand and what to expect of you."

"Good data," said Inui.

"Shut up Inui, I'm talking!" Ryuzaki shouted. "Basically, I've learned today that Rikkaidai's team are geniuses and Seigaku's team are douchebag cheaters."

"_Rikkaidai cheated, too!_" everyone from Seigaku screamed. "They were just better at it than we were!"

Ryuzaki ignored them.

"Tezuka, this is bad," Oishi hissed to Tezuka. "Morale is low. Make a really inspiring speech or something!"

Tezuka thought for a moment. "It's okay, guys," he said finally, to his team. "I knew this had to happen. This is the way we always operate. Rikkaidai has to win at least the first one, and then we all unleash our newest techniques. Everyone double your practicing, make sure your guard is up, and we'll soon make a dramatic comeback!"

"............"

"Right, but this isn't tennis," Momoshiro reminded him.

Tezuka stood silently. "......yeah, I've got nothing." he said finally. "Just cut to the next scene."

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

A/N....

Hmmm.....how many would _you_ have gotten right on that test? :) Anyone know the answer to question one?


	4. A Mild Extension

**A Mild Extension **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

"Wait, what?!" exclaimed Tezuka. "I said 'next scene'! What are we still doing here?"

"Who said _you_ get to call the shots?" Ryuzaki retorted. "It just so happens that I wasn't finished talking when you decided to end chapter three!"

"You've already humiliated and tortured us beyond the limits of a twenty four hour period," Echizen pointed out. "What more could you _possibly_ have to say?"

"Actually, we were just about to give you the directions for the second challenge before you could disappear," said Sakaki.

"The _second_ challenge!?" they all cried. "The first challenge ended thirty seconds ago!"

"Well, if we let you go home now, the chances that you would never come back were....."

"98.6 percent, which also happens to be the healthy human body temperature," said Yanagi and Inui in unison. Then they looked at eachother and shared a secret smile.

"Right, like they said," Ryuzaki affirmed. "So, we decided to give you the instructions for the second challenge right now."

Everyone exchanged angry looks. They hated to admit it, but that was probably what would have happened if the coaches had let them leave.

"Fine then, what's the second challenge!?" Kamio called.

"Funny you should ask," said Ryuzaki, although it really wasn't funny at all. "Because as it so turns out, the _second_ challenge is only for _second_ years."

"Huzzah!" all the third and first years cheered, while the second years stood there looking appalled.

"Oh, and Echizen has to do it too," Sakaki added.

Echizen stopped mid-cheer. "What!? Why me?!"

"You're the Prince of Tennis," said Ryuzaki. "You have to participate in nearly every challenge whether it pertains to you or not."

"That's not fair!"

"Sorry Echizen, but you _are_ the Prince of Tennis." Inui pointed out.

"I hate my job!" Echizen cried, stamping his feet on the ground. "I don't want to be Prince of Tennis anymore! Anyone want to trade?"

Everyone ignored him.

"So," continued Ryuzaki. "Third years and first years minus Echizen get off easy this time, but don't get too excited because you will be competing in later challenges!"

This didn't seem to perturb the celebrating teens, who were already making weekend plans together.

Sakaki and Ryuzaki frowned and wondered if they should change the challenge. There was something fundamentally wrong about the boys being happy.

"Anyway," Ryuzaki finally said, snapping out of her reverie, "all the second years and Echizen make a line."

They sulkily did so, while the third years laughed at them.

"Okay, now as you remember, I said that in every challenge there must always be at least one delegate from both Rikkaidai and Seigaku competing. Competitors from these two teams, step forward!" Ryuzaki ordered.

Kirihara, Kaidoh, Momoshiro, and Echizen stepped forward.

The two coaches looked at them.

"Okay, that was pointless. I don't know why I asked you to do that." Ryuzaki admitted. "You can step back now."

The four exchanged exasperated looks before stepping back again. Really, these coaches were champions at wasting not only their energy, but also their time.

"Alright," said Ryuzaki, "So, the second challenge is a challenge issued only to the fine second years that I see before me. It is a truly lovely challenge that I'm sure you will all enjoy immensely."

"What _is_ it?" They asked impatiently.

"She was trying to build up the suspense. Obviously." Yanagi said immediately.

"Exactly," said Ryuzaki. "I was going to make it a little more dramatic just so that it might be fun for you guys, but if you just want the cold, dry facts, then _fine_!"

"_Nothing_ you could do could possibly make this fun," said Kamio.

"What whiners!" exclaimed Ryuzaki in disgust. "I'll just get to it.....the second challenge _iiiiiisssssss._....."

Drumroll.

"The Poetry Challenge!"

There was a dramatic collective gasp.

"Yes, indeed!" said Ryuzaki enthusiastically. "In this challenge, I ask that each of the second years write an original poem!"

"Yeah, we _guessed_ that was what you meant by 'poetry challenge'," all the second years chorused irritably.

"Oh, really? Well then I guess since you guys are such geniuses, I don't have to explain anything else!"

"Nope," affirmed Kaidoh.

Ryuzaki was nearly tearing her hair out in frustration, so Sakaki took over.

"It would be more accurate to call it the 'haiku challenge'," he said. "We figured that if we assigned a challenge to write poetry, then you guys would all just write the shortest poems possible anyway, so to pretend that we still had some authority, we're _requiring_ that you write haiku! So _there_!"

Everyone had to think about this logic for a minute. It sort of made sense in a reverse psychology kind of way, but not really.

Sakaki continued, "You must all write a haiku for this challenge, on any subject that you choose. Since we know that art takes time, and we are reasonable people, the haiku will be due one week from now. That should give you plenty of time to brainstorm, plan out, and write your poem."

Everyone exchanged raised eyebrows at the words "reasonable people", but said nothing.

"So....I guess that's it," said Sakaki awkwardly. "You guys are to meet back here in one week's time with your poems. Any questions?"

"Does each team have an equal number of second years?" Shinji wanted to know.

Sakaki sighed and looked at Ryuzaki, who seemed to have recovered.

"I gotta tell you: I'm getting damn tired of this question." Ryuzaki said frankly. "Listen up, once and for all: _it doesn't matter_ how many people are on each team. We grade you objectively, judging how well your team did _on the whole_, so it makes no difference if one team has more players. Got that, everyone?"

"Yes," they said, pouting.

"Good! Then all I can say at this point is that I hope you write poetry better than you cheat!"

A few of the boys made snarling noises, but Ryuzaki had turned away to address the third and first years.

"You boys have it relatively easy this week since nothing is due from you," she said. "But that doesn't mean you should lie around and do nothing. Your success as a team depends on how well these poems come out, so I highly recommend that you make every effort to help your second years out!"

"Yeah, yeah....." They all said in tones that made it obvious that they weren't really listening.

"Okay, now everyone scatter," said Ryuzaki. "I intend to go home now myself. You are dismissed."

"Let's go to the beach!" Saeki said immediately. "It's Saturday and I've got to have some fun! I've been cooped up for too long....."

"Sounds good!" said Fuji, even though he hadn't been invited.

All the third years began making plans to hang out, leaving the second years and Echizen standing alone and looking rather dejected. "Figures," they all grumbled. "Damn third years."

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

**~The Next Day~  
**

"Okay, Second Years," said Sanada crisply, clasping his hands together and addressing Kirihara, Ishida, Shinji, Kamio, Kabaji, Hiyoshi, and Choutarou, who were sitting in a circle in the middle of the room. "I know that yesterday we third and first years sort of ditched you in your time of need, but we're very sorry for that and now we intend to do everything we can to aid you in writing successful poems."

"Where's Yukimura?" whined Hiyoshi, who was already tired of listening to Sanada's voice.

There was a pained silence among the Rikkaidai students.

"...Yukimura's.....not here." Sanada finally answered gruffly, dabbing at the corner of his eye. "He was feeling a bit off-color yesterday when we returned from karaoke and he went to bed early complaining of a headache and fever. This morning he woke up in a coma." Sanada paused to blow his nose. "We rushed him to the hospital, and they say that he'll probably be all right but......for the time being we'll need a substitute captain and I'm here for Yukimura."

"Hey, wait just a minute!" Gakuto shouted. "A coma is a deep state of unconsciousness! You can't _wake up_ in a coma; it's impossible!"

"How dare you!" Sanada shouted, turning red. "You've got no right to start discrediting Yukimura's problem! That's what happened and I'm telling you!"

"More importantly," Atobe interrupted, "If Yukimura really is in the hospital, then why does the leadership automatically transfer to you?"

"Because I'm the vice captain!" he shouted.

"And I'm a _real_ captain" Atobe pointed out, careful not to say "ore-sama" in fear that everyone would ignore him. "So if you think about it, it really makes much more sense that the leadership of this group goes to me."

"If we're looking at it like that, then why shouldn't _I _be captain?" Tachibana exclaimed, rising to his feet. "I'm just as qualified as Atobe!"

"Ditto." Said Shiraishi since he couldn't think of anything more compelling to say.

"This is Rikkaidai's championship at stake!" Sanada screamed. "Which is why it only makes sense to have a captain from Rikkaidai!"

Sanada and the three other captains began to argue loudly, with encouragement from their respective teammates, leaving the second years completely ignored, although the conversation had originally been opened for them.

"Let's go," muttered Shinji. "Without Yukimura, this team has no order. We'll be better off brainstorming alone."

The second years slipped out of the room, unnoticed by anyone.

"Bet Seigaku's team isn't having problems like these," Choutarou muttered ruefully.

**XxXxXxXxX**

Ichiuma, Ichirou, Touji, Momoshiro, Kaidoh, Echizen, David, and Yuuta--the second years on Seigaku's team--sat around in somnolent silence. Tezuka had been giving them an "inspiring" speech for the last four hours, and they were all bored to tears.

".....so in conclusion, the guard must not only be kept up at all times, but it should also be polished every Tuesday afternoon." Tezuka was saying. "For if you don't maintain it well, it will start to rust and then be of no use to you at all. Is everything understood?"

The second years snapped their heads up, as this was the first question that had been directed at them in hours.

"Yes, everything is understood," said Momoshiro hurriedly, rubbing his eyes and stretching. "I think we're all incredibly motivated now to start writing poetry."

"Well, good, because I've arranged a way to assist you," Tezuka said.

"NO!" all the second years shouted. Then they exchanged embarrassed looks.

"What we meant was......that you inspired us so much, we no longer need assistance," Yuuta said carefully. "We can write alone!"

"Nonsense!" Tezuka said, because that was his favorite word and he liked to sneak it into as many conversations as possible, whether it made sense in the context or not. "Nonsense!" he said again, because he had enjoyed saying it so much the first time. "I've arranged for a little writing workshop for you guys to get you thinking."

"A writing....workshop?" The second years said.

"Ah, look! You're already speaking in unison! Now you're acting like a team! The workshop begins to tomorrow morning and will continue until Saturday with no breaks."

"What?!" they all screamed.

"You can't force us to do a nonstop workshop for five days!" David cried, too upset to make a pun.

"It's for your benefit," Tezuka replied. "I'll have various activities going on that will stimulate your brains and help your poetry to come out the best it can be!"

"Locking us up will smother our creativity!" Ichirou complained.

"No, it will enhance it!" Tezuka said in a booming voice. "I know it will! And we have to win this challenge! The only way that we can ensure that our poems are better and more creative than Rikkaidai's is by holding an intense writing preparation session!"

"That's a terrible plan," Kaidoh warned.

"It's a great plan!" Tezuka shouted, his glasses flashing. "It is a ridiculously great plan! There is no possible way that a plan as genius as this could fail!"

"Hey, those are the exact same words Tezuka used when he insisted that Fuji should be let on the Seigaku tennis team," Momoshiro noted conversationally.

Everyone shuddered.

Tezuka shook his head, "Look, bottom line: you guys burned down my house and you sucked at the first challenge. Therefore, you're now obliged to do your best and attend my genius writing workshop."

"Awww...." They all groaned, but saw that they could not argue with him.

"It starts at eight o'clock in the morning tomorrow." Tezuka added. "Bring toiletries, five changes of clothing, and any other comforts that you might need for the session. No excuses!"

"Pineapple." Said Touji.

Everyone looked at him. Touji shrugged.

"The last two chapters have ended with a line from Tezuka," Touji explained. "It's bad luck for Tezuka to have a third. I'm just saving his ass."

* * *

**XxXxX  
**

* * *


	5. Really Good Ideas

**A Bunch of Really Good Ideas **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**Rikkaidai's Brainstorming Session: **

"All right, Second Years," Jirou clapped his hands. "We've got some semblance of order back into this team, so we're going to start your creative writing process now."

The third years on Rikkaidai's team had had a long argument for the last three days over the issue of Yukimura's illness and Sanada's takeover of power. For reasons that made no sense to anyone, Jirou had somehow come out as the new captain of the team. Sanada sat off moodily in the corner as Jirou gave instructions.

"Okay, so I've got an idea for a little activity for the second years," Jirou was saying. "I want all the second years to form a circle at the center of the room and then wait for further instruction. Everyone else gets cake."

"YAY!" all the third year and first years ran to the back of the room. The second years turned, and noticed for the first time that there was a giant, luscious chocolate cake set up on a card table.

"That's not fair!" they all whined. "We have to work and you guys get _cake_?"

"Well, you really should have thought of that before you decided to become second years," said Marui, his mouth already full.

"You didn't seriously think we could wait for the cupcakes, did you?" Jirou asked in surprise. "We need some caffeine to keep us thinking and directing this team! Also, watching us eat cake will give you an incentive to do your best in writing these poems. We'll give you cake later if we have leftovers."

"But don't count on it," Jackal said, tilting his head at Marui.

"Awwwwwww......." All the second years miserably got up.

"Those sugar-whores," griped Kirihara under his breath as they formed a circle in the middle of the room and drew their knees to their chests. The smell of chocolate cake was wafting their way.

"Alright," said Jirou when it was quiet. "Now, I think you guys should do a few little exercises in order to warm up your poetic minds. So I'm going to split you up into pairs and then you're going to do a preparation activity with your partner."

"Sweet! Like group warm up stretches for tennis matches?" Choutarou asked enthusiastically.

"No, not a damn thing like warm up stretches for tennis," said Sanada angrily. "You'll be collaborating in writing! One person will be the initiator: he will initiate a conversation. The other person will be the receiver: he continues on the same line of thought."

Choutarou pouted.

"Anyway, I've arranged your groups according to what are the most popular pairings in fandom," said Jirou.

"_What?!_" they all shouted.

"Just kidding! I paired you up randomly!" Jirou said, laughing. Then he stopped laughing. "Or _did_ I?"

"....."

"Okay, which one is it?" asked Kirihara.

Jirou shook his head and smiled. "So......group one is Shinji and Choutarou, group two is Hiyoshi and Kabaji, and group three is Kamio and Kirihara."

"Sweet," said Kirihara, as Kamio glared at him.

"What am _I _supposed to do?" Ishida asked.

"Sorry, Ishida, there's an odd number of people so you're just by yourself. A group of three would make no sense."

"But a group of one _would_. Naturally." Ishida said sarcastically. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I would much prefer to have Ishida as a partner," Hiyoshi volunteered.

"No. Ishida must be left alone because he's freakishly tall and no one likes his bandana," Yanagi explained.

"That's ridiculous!" Ishida shouted. "I don't have to deal with this! I'm out!" He got up and left. Not like the team leaders really cared.

"Okay, so get with your partners," said Jirou. "I mean, really _get_ with them, and then _assume your positions_."

"Is it just me or is Jirou is turning everything into a sexual reference?" Marui asked, scratching his head.

"Got your positions decided?" Jirou asked. "Good. Now, as Sanada sort of explained, this is an activity with an initiator and a receiver. Initiators, you must say a random word. Receivers, you must respond by saying the first word that comes to your mind as a response. Then the initiator does the same thing, and so on."

"How will that help us write poetry?" Shinji asked.

"Beats me," said Jirou cheerfully. "But it sounds legit, doesn't it?"

The second years slapped their foreheads.

"I think it'll help you guys to get your creativity going!" Jirou concluded. "It'll get you some good lists of words, in any case. Now, I want to hear some good conversations! Everyone may.....begin!"

**XxXxX**

"_Red_." Said Kirihara in a strangely provocative voice to Kamio.

Kamio frowned, hating his life. "I don't know......anger."

"Futile"

"Boring"

"Pointless"

"Naruto"

"Light"

"Dark"

"Lust"

"Hate"

"Grapes"

"Eyes"

"Dark"

"Night"

"Sky"

"Snow"

"Sword"

"Cut"

"Pain"

"Kill"

"Kiss"

"Hit"

"Taste"

"Frown"

"_Bite_"

"CARPET!" Kamio shouted.

"You're kidding." Marui interrupted them. They both turned.

"Marui-senpai, you're not supposed to _intervene_!" Kirihara whined, his tone suddenly much different than it was a moment ago.

"Sorry," said Marui. "But, Kamio, he's obviously flirting with you and then you just pour cold water all over it with _carpet_?" he asked, jamming more cake into his mouth.

Kamio blushed so hard that the line between his hair and his face was unclear.

"Leave me—alone—" he managed to stutter, while Kirihara looked a mixture between pissed off and amused.

Marui laughed some more. "I mean seriously. _Carpet_? That is so, _so_ cold!"

**XxXxX**

"Water" said Shinji.

"Milk" said Choutarou.

Shinji frowned. "That's not logical," he said. "If I say 'water', then it seems like the first thing that would come to any reasonable person's mind would be 'ocean', or 'rain', or 'river'."

"Well, I was just thinking along the lines of liquids!" Choutarou said. "Water and milk are both natural liquids!"

"That's stupid." Said Shinji.

"You can't insult how I think!" Choutarou snapped, deeply hurt by this comment. "It's my line of thought and therefore totally unique to me!"

"Whatever," Shinij rolled his eyes. "Hospital"

"Broken"

"Lame"

"Dead"

"That's not logical," Shinji said. " 'Lame' should make you think of your partner Shishido, or failing that, of some loser like Echizen. What does lameness have to do with dying? Are you saying that dead people are lame? Are you saying that Yukimura's lame if he dies?"

"NO!" Choutarou shouted. "I was thinking of 'lame' as in, 'incapacitated'. If you're severely incapacitated, you might be in danger of dying!"

"That's retarded," said Shinji. "Door knob."

"Key"

"Octopus"

"Oh, but _that's_ logical!" Choutarou screamed.

**XxXxX**

Hiyoshi sighed. He supposed it was worth one more try. "Pencil," he said.

"Usu"

"Magnet"

"Usu"

"Tree"

"Usu"

"Table"

"Usu"

"Blanket"

"Usu"

"No"

"Usu"

"NO!"

"Usu"

"Hiyoshi, what are you and Kabaji arguing about?" Jirou exclaimed, running over. "It's a terrible idea to start a fight with your teammate. I'm sure you can sort out whatever disagreement you're having!"

"Who said we were fighting?" Hiyoshi asked.

"I inferred that the fact that you were shouting 'yes' and 'no' meant that you were arguing some point," Jirou said. "Perhaps the validity of the Pythagorean theorem. Perhaps whether Pepsi is better than Coke. But it's clear that there's a problem."

"Not really," said Hiyoshi. "We were just doing the activity."

Jirou looked like he was about to respond, but before he could say anything, he fell asleep. Just like that. Standing up with his index finger extended didactically.

Silence fell in the room.

"Are....you.....kidding?" Tachibana asked. "How the _hell_ did this guy somehow end up as captain?"

"This is stupid anyway," said Sanada, standing up. "I can see that you second years are getting nothing out of this, so we're done here! I'm going to go visit Yukimura now." He put on a pea coat and a bowler hat. "Good day to you all, " he said in a British accent, before sweeping out the door.

"......?"

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

**Seigaku's Writing Workshop:  
**

"Great. Just freaking great," Ichiuma gnashed his teeth. "What the_ hell_ are we supposed to do now?"

The Seigaku team was stuck in a room in Sengoku's house. Tezuka had left them there over an hour ago with the instructions that they were to start brainstorming for poetry while he went to the bathroom. He hadn't been seen since. The second years had tried to escape, but the door was locked from the inside.

"This is officially the worst writing workshop ever," said Echizen plainly.

"Well what were you expecting?" Momoshiro snapped. "The last time Tezuka had a good idea was....." he trailed off, realizing that Tezuka had never had a good idea.

"Well, there's only one way we'll ever get out of here," Yuuta muttered. "We might as well try to brainstorm for our poems."

"How?" Touji asked.

"We could make lists of descriptions or something," Yuuta said, shrugging.

"Hey! How about we try to write descriptions about people we hate?" David suggested brightly.

"Yeah, that's perfect. I've got a haiku already," Ichirou said angrily:

"I hate Tezuka  
Because he's an asshole and  
He's a lunatic."

"Hey, that's not half bad," said Momoshiro. "It's poetic as hell."

They all agreed.

"Dude, _and_ the first and last lines have the same number of letters!" David noticed. "That's freaking awesome!"

"Wow, I didn't know I was such a good poet," said Ichirou. "Matching the number of letters in two lines? That's advanced as hell. I think that might be some of the most advanced shit I've seen in a very long time."

"Seems like you just thought of it on inspiration, too." Yuuta said. "So why don't we all just try writing our poems spontaneously?"

"Yeah. Good idea." David agreed. "Let's all just start writing. Everyone got a piece of paper?"

They all got out paper.

"Right. So above all, what's the most important thing that our poems need?" David asked.

They all thought in silence.

"A theme?" Echizen suggested halfheartedly.

"No, Moron. The most important thing is a title, of course!" Kaidoh snapped.

"Ahhh....." They all said.

"So first let's try to title our poems," David said. "Once we've done that, I think that all the rest will just fall into place."

"Good point," said Momshiro.

"That makes no sense! How can we title something we haven't even _written_ yet?" Echizen whined.

"Shut up, Echizen, you're a first year!" said Ichirou coldly.

"Another good point," Ichiuma said. "Let's compromise. We draw a line where the title should go, like this:____________________, and then we'll go back and fill it in later."

They all agreed that it was a very good idea.

"Good. Now what?" Touji asked, after drawing his line.

"Now we should write who the poem is by," Yuuta said. "That's the second most important thing. Like: _____________________, by: 'Your Name'."

"Indeed." they said.

They all wrote down 'by' and then their names. David leaned away from his paper after writing it, and squinted at it, tapping his pencil against his teeth.

_________________________, by: Amane David

"There's something missing," he said. "I feel that it's incomplete somehow."

"Is this one of your set ups to a pun?" Kaidoh asked.

"Surprisingly, no," David admitted. "I just think something's......." he trailed off and snapped his fingers.

"I've got a great idea," he said. "I know what's missing. We all need nicknames!"

"Nicknames?" they looked nonplussed. "How will that help?"

"Because it's creative! I'll bet that we get at least twenty extra credit points apiece if we have cool nicknames. You know what I'm saying? 'Amane David' is so boring. I should be...... 'Amane "The Goblet of Fire" David'. You know what I'm saying?"

"That's a great idea!" said Touji. "And totally not a waste of time! Let's all make nicknames!"

"Isn't 'David' _already_ a nickname?" Yuuta asked. "I mean, isn't your real name Hikaru?"

David stared at him. "......what's your point?"

Yuuta shook his head. "Nothing."

So the students spent the next hour and a half coming up with, and perfecting nicknames for themselves to put in quotation marks between their first and last names.

"Whew! I'm tired out!" Momoshiro sighed, putting down his pencil, reclining in his seat, and stretching after they had finished. He glanced down at what he had written:

_______________________, by: Momoshiro "The Moonshine Killer" Takeshi

"We've made a lot of progress for today." Momoshiro said. "Why don't we take a break now? I'm sure it's not healthy to sit here working so hard for hours on end. We have five freaking days to spend in here anyway."

"Good idea," they all said. "Let's play a game instead!"

"Which one?" Ichiuma asked.

"Do you _really_ have to ask?"

It took the boys less than thirty seconds to turn the room into a makeshift tennis court.

"Momoshiro to serve!" Momoshiro shouted, throwing up a crumpled previous attempt at a poem and hitting it with his pencil.

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *


	6. Mochi Touji

**Chapter Six: Mochi Touji **

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRY! I LOVE YOU DEARLY!!!  
(Harry Potter, if you didn't get that...) **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

At long last a week had passed and both of the teams gathered before Coach Ryuzaki to compete in the second challenge.

"Basically the only way we're going to win is if Seigaku sucks beyond belief, right?" Hiyoshi asked dully.

"Pretty much," Shinji nodded. "So we still have a chance."

"Have you _seen_ our poems?" Kamio asked. "We're going _down._"

"Now, is that any attitude to have?" Jirou asked pleasantly. "I'm sure that you will all do very well and make Team Nice Guys proud."

"Yeah...whatever..." The second years said.

**XxX**

Tezuka still hadn't come back from the bathroom, so Oishi prepared to give the prep-speech for Team Douchebags. Before he could open his mouth though, his team shushed him.

"What?" asked Oishi. "Without an inspirational speech, you'll surely fail!"

"Save it. We haven't slept in a week." said Yuuta flatly.

**XxX**

"Ah, I'm so excited for today!" Ryuzaki beamed, stretching her arms over her head. "I've been thinking about this all week and anticipating your poems!"

The second years all gulped.

Choutarou stepped forward timidly to hand in the paper with the poem on it.

"What are you doing, Boy?" Ryuzaki barked, frowning at the gesture.

"Tu—turning my poem in?" Choutarou tried, squinting nervously.

"No, no NO!" Ryuzaki cried. "Didn't I mention last time? We're going to be reading these poems out loud and then I will be grading them in front of everyone!"

"WHAT?!" the second years looked shocked and upset while everyone else looked pleased.

Ryuzaki shrugged. "It was a way to put more pressure on you guys," she explained. "If you know that everyone's going to hear your poem, it gives you more of an incentive to write a good one."

"Right, except you DIDN'T tell us!" Kirihara shouted.

"Ah. Fair point." conceded Ryuzaki. "I guess you guys are just screwed, then."

She abruptly changed the topic. "For this challenge, I've invited as a guest judge a real live English teacher from a nearby high school! Please welcome......Mr. Mizuno!"

"Huh?" everyone turned in time to see a decrepit old man walking towards them. He was about five feet tall and had tiny slits for eyes. "How do you do?" he asked, upon reaching them, extending a hand with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Who the hell are you?" they all asked.

"Now, is that any way to speak to a stranger?" Ryuzaki scolded, coming between the students and Mr. Mizuno. "Mr. Mizuno here is a distinguished teacher of English at the nearby Suzuki High School. Since our challenge today is exactly concerned with good writing, I decided to invite him as our guest judge!"

"Why did you invite him if he's an _English_ teacher?" Kamio asked. "We're _Japanese_ students." He paused, and then added uncertainly, "Right?"

"Hm," Ryuzaki put a finger to her lips. "Yes, now that you put it like that, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, now does it?" she mused.

"I double majored in English and Japanese." Mr. Mizuno offered.

"Ah! There you go!" said Ryuzaki.

Everyone exchanged skeptical looks.

"Anyway," said Ryuzaki. "I want everyone to make sure your name is on the poem, and also make sure that you've written down which team you are representing. We're going to be reading all of your poems aloud to everyone and grading them publicly. Mr. Mizuno will give you a grade of A, B, C, D, or F. An 'A' is worth 5 points; a 'B' is worth 4 points, and so on, with an 'F' being worth 1 point. Of course, we can choose to award you extra points if your poems is super good, or we can give you negative points if you suck beyond all belief. Afterward, we shall add up all the points that each team has accumulated and find the average. Whichever team has a higher average overall wins."

"Sounds fair enough," Inui said.

"That's because it has nothing to do with you," Echizen pointed out.

"True," Inui said.

"So..." said Ryuzaki. "Without further ado, I demand that all the second years and Echizen form a line and come up one by one to be graded!"

There was an instantaneous scramble as everyone formed the line, but tried not to be the first person. Echizen ultimately ended up first, because all the second years ganged up on him and forcibly planted him first in line.

"Oh, and one more rule!" Ryuzaki added. "While you are waiting in line for you turn to get graded, you are NOT allowed to make any changes to your poem! Any messing with your poems as they are now will be considered CHEATING!"

"Ooooh, we'd better be caweful!" The second years said to one another in mock-worry.

Ryuzaki glared at them. "Alright, now shut up, because we have fifteen people to get through today and I'm sure you all are going to have dumb commentary after every poem anyway."

They agreed that it was true.

"Okay Echizen, the only first year, it looks like you're first! And since you're the Prince of Tennis, you should be aware that everyone here is going to be judging you personally and will think you're a dumbass if you have a bad poem."

Echizen rolled his eyes and stepped forward. However coolly he acted though, one could see his hand trembling as he held out his poem.

Noticing this, Oishi shouted, "I'm not judging you, Echizen!"

Echizen nodded faintly.

But Oishi was lying. He really was judging Echizen.

**Team Seigaku **

_That One Girl_,  
By: Echizen Ryoma

_I see that one girl  
With long hair that's been braided.  
Mada mada dan_

There was silence.

"Wow, Echizen." Said Ryuzaki finally. "I think I can say with reasonable certainty that that's the worst haiku I've ever read in my life."

There were murmers of assent from the crowd.

"What does mada mada _dan_ mean?" asked Choutarou confusedly. "Is he talking about Dan, that one guy from Yamabuki?"

"Of course not, fool." Said Echizen, feeling upset and nervous by the reception of his poem. "It's supposed to say "dane", but it was too many syllables. So I shortened it a little."

"What?! You can't just go around hacking off syllables to make words fit into your poem!" exclaimed Kirihara. "That's completely stupid! Give him an F, Mr. Mizuno!

"I certainly intend to." Mr. Mizuno replied. "Though not necessarily because of the quality of the poem. I give F's all the time, just for fun. It's awesome to see the students freak out. Sometimes, even if they got an A, I just give them an F anyway."

Suddenly Touji started laughing.

"What?" asked Kirihara.

But he seemed unable to stop. After about five minutes, Touji controlled himself enough to ask,

"Wait a minute, wait a minute....." Touji swallowed his chuckles, "so the original poem would have been:

'I see that one girl  
With long hair that's been braided  
Mada mada dane'?

That makes no sense!"

They all laughed a bit when they realized that Touji was right.

Echizen fought down a blush. "You're supposed to be my teammate!" he snapped at Touji. Then he turned back to Ryuzaki. "If you guys are done with my poem, I'd like it back now," he said stiffly.

"What? Yeah, sure," said Ryuzaki. "I'm bored of it anyway. You get an F. And I think we've spent too much time on commentary; we'll never get through all fifteen haiku if we spend this long chatting. Let's move! Choutarou, you're up next!"

Choutarou stepped up and Echizen moved away, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

"Alright, Choutarou! What have you got?" Ryuzaki asked.

**Team Rikkaidai **

_Gray Hair_,  
By: Ootori Choutarou

_Sometimes I do wish  
I hadn't gotten gray hair  
Before my grandpa _

"That's depressing. I'll give you an A for pity." Said Mr. Mizuno.

"Nice." Said Choutarou.

There was a pause.

"So.....that's it!" said Ryuzaki. "Move along now!"

Choutarou frowned in disbelief. "That's all? But that was so.....painless! And non-insulting!"

"Do you _want_ us to insult you?" Ryuzaki and Mr. Mizuno asked.

"No!" said Choutarou, scurrying off.

"Hiyoshi, you're next!" Ryuzaki called.

**Team Rikkaidai **

_Someday_,  
By: Hiyoshi Wakashi

_Someday I'll show them  
Gekokujou their asses  
And become the best _

"Wow. This kid has issues," said Mr. Mizuno. "Who are you talking about? I mean, who's this "they" that you want to Gekokujou?"

"Just other people. In general." Said Hiyoshi.

"....right. So you're going to Gekokujou people?"

"Pretty much."

"He's not going to Gekokujou anyone! 'Gekokujou' isn't even a verb!" Gakuto called from the sidelines.

"Shut up, Gakuto!" Hiyoshi retorted, flushing immediately.

"Well, it wasn't really that good, but since you're obviously very pathetic, I'll give you an A minus." Said Mr. Mizuno.

"Sweet." Said Hiyoshi.

"Kaidoh! It's your turn to try to redeem Seigaku's name!" Ryuzaki called. "Don't disappoint me!"

Kaidoh shuffled forward nonchalantly. He pretended that he didn't care about the outcome, but in actuality, Kaidoh had worked incredibly hard on his haiku. He was proud and sure that it was the best out of everyone's.

**Team Seigaku **

_Snakes,_  
By: Kaidoh "The Very Bad Man" Kaoru

"Whoa. What's with that nickname?" asked Ryuzaki.

"It's.....what my friends call me." Kaidoh said.

Ryuzaki stared at it. "Well, it's awesome!" she suddenly said. "I love it! You get an extra credit point right away!"

"Told you," David muttered to his teammates in line, slapping them high five.

"Now for the actual poem," Ryuzaki continued.

_A moonshine hued snake  
Slithers here with elegance  
My spring has begun _

Kaidoh read it aloud to everyone. The he tried to smile, but since he hadn't done it in twelve years, he had forgotten how. A strange strained grimace came onto his face instead.

Mr. Mizuno was dismissive. "Well, it's not bad." He said. "But it's not Super Special Awesome either. I'd give it a B minus. Next." He said.

Kaidoh was frozen in place, his heart shattered all over the floor.

Touji went next. His haiku was creatively named Touji's Haiku.

**Team Seigaku Proudly Presents: **

_Touji's Haiku_,  
By: Muromochi "Le Mochi" Touji

"_God_, that's an awesome nickname!" Ryuzaki shouted. "Try saying it three times fast! Extra credit! Oh God, I'm almost tempted to give Seigaku the championship just for this awesome nickname!"

Touji smiled smugly.

"Let's read the poem now," suggested Mr. Mizuno.

_Mathematical,  
Homosexuality  
Pediatrician. _

"Wow. Impressive, Touji-kun." Said Mr. Mizuno. "You get an A."

"_What!_?" screamed Kaidoh, who was still extremely hurt because of his own poem's failure. "That's the worst haiku I've ever seen in my life! It's obvious he put no effort into it at all! He just put together three words! It's not poetic in any way! Mine was so much better than that!"

"Hm, you have a point." Said the teacher. "Never mind, you get an F, Touji-kun."

"What? No—sensei!" implored Touji. "Look at this!"

He pointed to the comma after "mathematical". "See!? I put in a delicate pause! That makes my haiku unique from all the others! How can you say syntax as unique as that isn't poetic?"

"Hm, actually you have a point, too." Said the teacher. "You get an A again."

"Is it just me or is this teacher a complete idiot?" muttered Ishida under his breath.

"Ishida-kun, you get an F." Mr. Mizuno said, without even looking at him.

"You didn't even read my haiku!" shouted Ishida.

"It was bound to suck." He replied.

"Oh really? Well, fine then. FINE!" Ishida ripped his haiku into many tiny pieces. Then he took out a pocket lighter with a goofy clown on top, and he set the pieces on fire. And then he crushed the burnt pieces under his shoes until they were the finest of ashes and then he gathered them into his hand and blew them off into the western winds.

So no one ever found out what Ishida's haiku was about. How sad.

"Should I give Touji extra credit for writing 'proudly presents'?" Ryuzaki mused aloud. "No one else did."

Ichirou's turn was next.

**Team Seigaku **

_Why I Hate Tezuka_,  
By: Ichirou "Maple Syrup" Kaneda

"Ah, I'm loving these nicknames!" said Ryuzaki, wiping a tear from her eye. "They just don't get old somehow! Let's just say that from now on, anyone with a nickname gets extra credit!"

"God damn!" Kirihara, who was next in line, hissed. He turned to Kamio, who was standing behind him. "What the hell are we going to do?" he whispered. "They're totally owning us, just because they made stupid nicknames for themselves! Why didn't we think of something like that?"

Kamio shrugged. "Who really cares?" he said. "It's not like we can do anything about it now."

"Oh yeah?" Kirihara looked around before leaning into Kamio. "Got a pen?" he whispered.

"Yeah, why?" Kamio asked, withdrawing one.

Kirihara seized the pen. He looked at his poem where he had written "by: Kirihara Akaya". In a quick motion, he scribbled out "Kirihara Akaya" and wrote in "Superman".

"There!" said Kirihara breathlessly, handing the pen back to Kamio. "Now we'll win for sure!"

"You're going to get in trouble for changing your poem!" Kamio whispered back.

Kirihara raised an eyebrow, "Come off it," he said. "There's no way they'll—"

"Kirihara, come on, you're up next!" Ryuzaki shouted.

Kirihara scurried forward and handed his poem triumphantly to Coach Ryuzaki.

**Team Rikkaidai **

_"The Bat_, by: Superman" Mr. Mizuno read. "Well, you automatically get one point off for not knowing your own name."

"_What?_" Kirihara shouted. "You gave all the other boys extra credit for coming up with nicknames!"

"That's because they did so after demonstrating an understanding of their own names," Ryuzaki explained. "For example, Ichirou wrote 'Ichirou "Maple Syrup" Kaneda'. This shows that he not only knows that his name is Ichirou Kaneda, but also that he can make a cute pun by referencing Canada's high quality maple syrup."

Kirihara was temporarily silenced, as he digested this very good point, but then he snapped back saying, "Look, I know my real name! The only reason I left it out is because it's so obvious that I know it! Look, you can still sort of see my name written here, from before I crossed it out—"

Kirihara pointed it out.

"Right. Now you get a zero, Kirihara, because you cheated." Said Ryuzaki. "I told you that you couldn't change your poems in line!"

"Crap." Kirihara slapped a hand over his face.

"So all in all, you get a negative one." Said Mr. Mizuno.

"Aww.....man!" Kirihara said, running a hand through his hair and slowly turning back to fall back into line.

"Don't say a _word_," he said as he passed Kamio, who was looking a little smug.

"Kamio, you're up next!" said Ryuzaki.

**Team Rikkaidai **

_Ice Cream_,  
By: Kamio Akira

_Ice cream's nice and sweet  
It's cool and rich: a real treat  
Helps me keep my beat_

There was utter silence for an entire minute. Then, just as Kamio was contemplating which form of suicide to commit that night, the everyone broke into applause.

"Bravo!" cried Mr. Mizuno emphatically, "Oh, well done, bravo!"

"It's good?" asked Kamio.

"It's wonderful!" he gushed. "Such sophisticated subject matter combined with a beautifully unique rhyme scheme! You get an A plus _plus_!"

"It wasn't _that_ good," Kamio muttered, blushing as everyone clapped some more.

"Yeah, but anyway," the teacher suddenly cleared his throat and stopped clapping. "Time to move on to the next poem. David!"

**Team Seigaku **

_Tennis Ball_,  
By: Amane "The Goblet of Fire" David

_I am on a roll  
I must be a tennis ball!  
LOL haha!_

"I guess that's a D," said Mr. Mizuno.

"What? Why?" David whined.

"Amane-kun, the poem doesn't even work," said the teacher. "The last line: 'lol, haha' is only three syllables."

"No, actually it's pronounced L.O.L," David said. "So that's three syllables and then you add on the 'haha' and it's five syllables."

"Ah. I stand corrected" he paused. "Well, it still sucks. But I'll give you a C plus because I like Harry Potter."

"I'll take it!" David declared.

"Momoshiro UP!" Ryuzaki cried. "You get to wow us next, you lucky little boy!"

"You don't have to come up with an introduction for each of us," said Momoshiro tiredly, moving forward.

Ryuzaki frowned. "I'll have you know that I was thinking about that all through David's poem," she said in a hurt voice. "Now I'm going to be biased when grading your poem."

"Whatever."

**Team Seigaku **

_Night Sky_,  
By: Momoshiro "The Moonshine Killer" Takeshi

_Stars sprinkle the sky  
The moon is a splash of milk  
Painting the night white _

Everyone stared. No one knew what to make of it.

"Well, what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Mr. Mizuno asked finally. "I mean, what was the point of that poem?"

Momoshiro frowned. "This is what haiku are supposed to be about! Nature, seasons.....stuff like that! I'm the only one who wrote a haiku like it's supposed to be written!"

The teacher seemed baffled. "I'll grade it tomorrow" he said. "I don't know what to make of this. It doesn't make sense....."

"You're the worst Japanese teacher ever, you know that?" Momoshiro said.

"I'm an English teacher," he said.

"Kabaji's next!" interrupted Ryuzaki. "And I've got a feeling that he wants Mr. Mizuno to read his poem out loud for him!"

"Usu." Said Kabaji.

"Alright then," said Mr. Mizuno, taking the poem and glancing at the title. " 'Usu', By: Kabaji Munehiro. I'll read it."

All the second years exchanged grins and leaned forward. At least this haiku was practically guaranteed to be the worst.

Mr. Mizuno looked at Kabaji's haiku, and opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then he began to look sad.

"What!? What is it!?" cried all the boys, dying to know what was so terrible.

"This....this is the most beautiful haiku I've ever seen in my life!" cried the teacher. "Kabaji-kun...you......."

The teacher started sobbing. Everyone was intrigued and tried to grab the poem, but the teacher clutched it to his chest, crying harder than ever. "This is why I became a teacher!" He exclaimed. "To get this insight into the beautiful minds of children such as you!"

Everyone became desperate for the poem

When they finally prised it from the teacher, it was so tearstained that they couldn't read a word. Neither Mr. Mizuno nor Kabaji would repeat the poem. Mr. Mizuno gave Kabaji a good grade and Ryuzaki gave him super extra credit. Everyone else felt pissed off that they had somehow lost to a guy that only knows one word. How had he written a poem that was better than theirs only using the word 'usu'?

"My, I haven't gotten that emotional in a while!" exclaimed Mr. Mizuno, blowing his nose and drying his eyes. "It's so refreshing to see that the world still has talent. Ichiuma-kun, will you please step up now?" he asked the next person in line.

Ichiuma stepped forward.

"If you liked Kabaji's, prepare to be _amazed_ by _my_ haiku." Ichiuma said confidently. "I'd like to read it myself, if that's alright. You see, it needs to be read with the proper breaks and pauses and the right amount of passion."

"Sure, go ahead," Mr. Mizuno shrugged.

**Team Seigaku **

_I Believe in Yesterday_,  
By: Ichiuma "The Black Ranger" Kita

_Yesterday. All my  
Problems seemed so far away  
Now they're here to stay_.

Ichiuma finished reading and smiled smugly.

"Ichiuma-kun, you plagiarized that." said Mr. Mizuno in a bored voice. "You get a zero. Not even extra credit for the nickname."

"Oh, God damn it!" spat Ichiuma, throwing down the haiku and stamping his feet, while everyone from Rikkaidai's team laughed at him. "What were the chances that he had heard that Beatles song? Huh? What were the chances?"

"Pretty high, considering that you chose to plagiarize a pop culture song from a band that was incredibly famous in its time." Said Shinji.

"Speaking of which, where's _your_ poem, Ibu?" Ryuzaki asked. "You should be next, but I don't see any poem."

"I didn't do the assignment." Said Shinji in a deadpan voice.

There was silence.

"Well....why the hell not?" Ryuzaki asked finally.

Shinji shrugged.

Mr. Mizuno gazed upon him, and then lifted his hands, slowly bringing them together. He clapped harder and harder, until it was an enthusiastic applause.

"Well done, Ibu-kun!" he cried. "You were bright enough to realize that this whole challenge was completely pointless and just a filler waste of time! So you didn't do it! You _definitely_ get an A!"

"Okay seriously." Kaidoh stood up. He had held his tongue up till now, but this was too much. "I've accepted that this grading scale makes no sense, but how is it possible that I lost to a guy who didn't even _write_ a poem?"

Everyone ignored him.

"Is that everyone?" asked Mr. Mizuno, after he finished clapping.

"No, but there's just one more," said Ryuzaki. "Fuji Yuuta, please step forward."

"GO YUUTA!" Syuusuke screamed, holding up a giant foam finger and sounding one of those annoying compressed air horns. "I know you can do it!"

Yuuta nervously offered out his poem, genuinely having no idea what to expect from it.

**Team Seigaku**

_Older Brother_,  
By: Fuji "The Cool Brother" Yuuta

_He isn't all that  
Someday I will defeat him  
Younger brothers rule_

"That poem would make absolutely no sense if you didn't know Yuuta," Mizuki commented vaguely.

"This poem makes absolutely no sense to me," said Mr. Mizuno. "But I have an older brother, so I agree with you. You get a B."

"Yay." Said Yuuta unenthusiastically, before trooping off to rejoin his team.

"WOOT, YOU DID IT YUUTA!" Syuusuke screamed.

"Well, that's it for the poems then!" Ryuzaki cried. "Some of you exceeded my expectations and some of you were even worse than I had anticipated! I'm very proud of you all for your efforts, though! Let's have a round of applause!"

Everyone clapped enthusiastically, grateful that it was over.

"Thank _God_ that's over!" Gakuto said emphatically. "Listening to that poetry almost made me wish that someone would come along with a rusty pair of pliers and pull out each of my teeth individually while slapping me repeatedly in the face with a slice of pizza."

"Honestly." I'd rather have been playing Scrabble than listening to that," Oshitari agreed.

"What an utter waste of time..." they all muttered amongst themselves, just loud enough so that the exhausted and humiliated second years could hear.

"And, now for the most important part!" cried Ryuzaki, totally oblivious to the grumblings of the students. "We're going to evaluate the results and figure out who wins this challenge! So stay tuned for the final moment of judgment!"

"Gasp-I-can't-wait." Everyone said in a bored voice.

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**A/N: **

1. Ichiuma's Poem: I had Yesterday by the Beatles stuck in my head as I was writing this fiction :) Wonderful, _wonderful_ song.

2. This chapter was published somewhat prematurely in order to honor the birthday of Harry Potter. Please make Harry's birthday a lovely day for me, readers! You know what I mean. ;)


	7. This Changes Everything!

**This Changes Everything! **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

"Annnnnnnnddd, we're back, folks!" cried Ryuzaki enthusiastically. "I know that wait was long and excruciating, but we're here now!"

"Oh, goody." was the apathetic response.

"And now it's time to evaluate how you all did! Since I've got some time on my hands, I'll make a nice little chart so that you can all see how the teams did. I will record the points that you earned, and well as any extra credit, and then find your team's average. This should be exciting!"

"Not really." They all said.

Ryuzaki quickly whipped up a chart with all the scores of each person on it:

* * *

**Team Seigaku**

1. Echizen........F- 1 point

2. Kaidoh.........B- 4 points +1 e.c.

3. Touji............A- 5 points +1 e.c.

4. Ichirou.........A- 5 points +1 e.c.

5. David...........C- 3 points +1 e.c.

6. Momoshiro...C- 3 points +1 e.c.

7. Ichiuma........0

8. Yuuta...........B- 4 points +1 e.c.

**Team Rikkaidai**

Choutarou.......A- 5 points

Hiyoshi............A- 5 points

Ishida.............0

Kirihara...........Negative 1 point

Kamio..............A- 5 points +1 e.c. for being cool

Kabaji..............A- 5 points +2 e.c. ('cause it was _just_ that good)

Ibu..................A- 5 points

**Averages: **

Team Seigaku-

(1+5+6+6+4+4+0+5) / 8 = **3.875**

Team Rikkaidai-

(5+5+0-1+6+7+5) / 7 = **3.857142857142857….**

**

* * *

  
**

"Wow. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it looks like Seigaku actually won," said Ryuzaki in awe.

The Seigaku team stared at her for a moment to verify that it wasn't a joke, and when she said nothing more, they all began to cheer and celebrate.

"Wait a minute, though!" shouted Mr. Mizuno suddenly. "I just noticed something! Something that could change everything!"

"Our average is higher than theirs! What could change?" cried Eiji.

"Look at this," Mr. Mizuno pointed to Rikkaidai's average. "Their average is 3.857142857142857..... and so on."

"Yeah. So?" Everyone from Seigaku's team asked blankly.

"So? It's a repeating decimal!" he cried enthusiastically. "It just keeps repeating the order 857142 after the decimal point!"

"What does that have to do with _anything_?" Kaidoh asked, trying to maintain his composure.

"No, he's right!" Ryuzaki cried. "It _is_ a repeating decimal! This changes everything!"

"**_How?_**" Team Seigaku screamed, as Team Rikkaidai looked hopeful.

"Repeating decimals are freaking awesome!" Ryuzaki shouted. "They're pretty much the most awesome things in the world! They're worth ten extra credit points in themselves!"

"So......does this mean _we_ win?" Niou ventured.

"You bet!" Ryuzaki and Mizuno shouted together.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" everyone from Seigaku cried, falling to their knees. "This can't be happening! We won! _We_ won!"

"Sorry Seigaku, but sometimes when you come across special circumstances like this, you can't ignore them." Said Ryuzaki. "I could never sleep at night if I had on my conscience the knowledge that I had let a team with a repeating decimal lose to a team that didn't."

"That makes absolutely no sense!" they all screamed.

"Oh, get over it," said Ryuzaki. "There will be other challenges and maybe next time you can get a repeating decimal and win."

The Seigaku team was too appalled to speak. Ryuzaki shrugged and began to address everyone.

"Alright, so Rikkaidai wins again, if narrowly." She said. "Seigaku is now down by a 2-0 lead. They'll have to really work hard to make a comeback."

"Just like the tennis match...." they all moaned.

"And I forgot to mention......" said Ryuzaki.

"The number of things you forget to mention could fill the book of Genesis!" everyone shouted.

"I _forgot_ to _mention_," Ryuzaki continued angrily. "the winner of this challenge actually gets a prize."

"A prize? What prize?" everyone was temporarily distracted.

"Well, Rikkaidai won," said Ryuzaki. "So their prize is......they get to rename both the teams!"

"Rename both teams?" Rikkaidai echoed in punctured anticipation. "That's not a very interesting prize."

"But it's better than nothing!" said Marui, catching the look on Ryuzaki's face.

"Actually, I think nothing would be better," said Sanada.

While the Seigaku team stood around fuming in their righteous rage, Rikkaidai's team formed a circle and put their heads together to come up with new names for both of the teams.

"Anyone got any ideas?" Jirou asked.

They all thought in silence for a moment.

Yanagi opened his notebook. "Might I suggest that for the other team, we change their names from 'Douchebags' to 'Bags of Douche'?" he suggested calmly.

"_Why_?" asked Shishido.

Yanagi shrugged. "Just to annoy them."

"Well, I think we should come up with a name for ourselves first," Jirou said. "After we're settled, we can think about how to bother the other team."

They thought some more.

Then Jirou suddenly snapped his fingers. "I've got it!" he shouted, stars suddenly gleaming in his eyes. "It's the perfect name!" Jirou spun around to face Ryuzaki.

He cleared his throat and announced loudly, "We shall be called......Cauliflower!"

There was utter silence as everyone and judges stared at Jirou.

"What?" he said. "I like cauliflower."

"I.....see." Said Ryuzaki finally. "Well, it's your choice. So Rikkaidai is now Team Cauliflower."

"No, no, not 'Team Cauliflower'," said Jirou, waving his hands impatiently. "Just Cauliflower."

Silence.

"Okay........Cauliflower." said Ryuzaki uncertainly. "Do I dare ask what you want you opposing team to be called?"

"Radish!" shouted Jirou immediately. "I hate radishes!"

"Okay, Seigaku, you are now Radish," said Ryuzaki.

"Well, it's better than Douchebags," said Inui, moving his pencil in his notebook.

"What are you _doing_ in that notebook!?" Momoshiro suddenly asked him. "You're not _seriously_ taking notes on the fact that they changed our name to Radish, are you?"

"Nah." said Inui. "I'm just drawing a turtle."

"I can't believe we got off so easy," said Sengoku. "Radish really isn't that bad. I was expecting much worse."

Ryuzaki cleared her throat. "I didn't say it was free discussion time," she said. "But I suppose that concludes the set of unexpected events for today. You guys are free to return to your homes or street tennis challenges or whatever loser things you do in your free time."

"Wait, so you aren't you going to tell us what the next challenge is before we leave?" Aoi asked cautiously.

"Oh, that's right! Thank you Aoi, I had completely forgotten!"

Everyone glared at Aoi furiously for having asked. He looked down embarrassedly at his shoes. You know how it is. The way that everyone in class glares at the student who reminds the teacher to give the homework assignment.

"I'm glad you reminded me, Aoi." Said Ryuzaki, "Because this third challenge is actually one of my favorites and I want to get to it as soon as possible. Like the previous challenge, this task is also designed to test your creative abilities, but in a rather different way. This time, you're going to be exercising your powers of _persuasion_."

This statement struck them all as a little bit ominous, but they waited for her to continue.

She went on, "First and foremost though, I suppose I should tell you which group of students this challenge applies to."

"Well, the second challenge was for second years...." Shinji mused aloud. "Does that mean that the third challenge will be for third years?"

"What? No. What gave you that idea?" Ryuzaki asked. "That would be completely stupid."

Shinji stared at her.

"No, this challenge is for......redheads!" Ryuzaki cried.

There was a burst of noise as everyone with red hair groaned and everyone without red hair cheered and semi-began to party.

"However," Ryuzaki said, "this isn't quite like the last challenge, in which people who weren't second years were completely unaffected. In this challenge, the red heads are just the main participators. However, they will be working in small groups to complete the challenge."

"Ehhhhh....." The brunettes slowly lowered the victory flags that they had been waving.

"So what IS this mysterious challenge that requires persuasion?" Saeki asked for everyone.

"I was getting to that." Ryuzaki said stiffly. "This challenge is........the Advertisement Challenge! You're going to be advertising things!"

"No _kidding_!" They all shouted. "We would never have guessed from the name!"

Ryuzaki ignored them, calling out, "I want all the redheads to step forward at this time! That includes everyone with red, orange, or pink hair!"

"Awww....." Marui pulled off the black wig that he had been trying to discreetly force on his head.

There was a collective sigh. Then, Gakuto, Jirou, Marui, Sengoku, Kintaro, Eiji, David, and Kamio stepped forward.

"How nice." Said Ryuzaki. "Look at this, there's a representative from every single school up here!"

"No one from St. Rudolph," Mizuki pointed out.

"I should have been more clear. There is a representative from every school that matters up here." Said Ryuzaki.

"Burrnnnn," everyone said to the students from St. Rudolph.

"Now then," said Ryuzaki. "As you can see, there are eight redheads." Ryuzaki held up a white pillowcase. "I'm only going to explain this once," she said. "In this pillowcase, you'll find that there are eight photographs of items that you are going to have to sell. They are completely random items. One by one, I want each of you redheads to come up here and choose a photograph from the bag. That is the item you must create an advertisement for."

She paused for breath. "Now listen carefully to this part," she said. "The redheads who pick the items are the official group leaders, meaning that they are the _official_ delegates from each team. However, as you might guess, it's pretty difficult to make an advertisement all by yourself. Therefore, after the redheads up here pick their items, they can choose to complete this challenge alone, or they can have help from their friends in making the advertisement. So even if you don't have red hair, there's a chance that you will be helping out and participating in this challenge!"

"No fair!" all the brunettes chorused.

Ryuzaki continued, "There's one other rule. Redheads on the same team are not allowed to help one another, and they cannot have the same group members. For example, even though Gakuto and Marui are both on Cauliflower, they may not help eachother make their advertisements and they cannot both be helped by Jackal, or someone else. I want eight separate advertisements—one from each person!"

"I'm excited for this challenge!" Eiji cried, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "It sounds like fu-un!"

"I like your attitude. Now come pick your items out of the bag." Ryuzaki said, opening the neck of the pillowcase and holding it out. One by one they stepped forward and picked their items.

"I got....a health insurance plan." Said Sengoku.

"Yup!" said Ryuzaki. "Your items are totally random, so you've just got to make do with whatever you draw!"

All the boys followed suit and drew.

"Okay, now go back to your respective teams," Ryuzaki said to them all. "Show your objects to your teams so that you guys have an idea of what you're working with, and then you might want to start thinking about who you want to help you."

The redheads trooped back over to their teams.

"Just want to let you know that we'll help you make your advertisements no matter what your objects are," Oishi said nicely the moment that Eiji, David, and Sengoku returned. "That being said, what'd you guys get?"

"I got some weird health insurance plan, I already told you," said Sengoku.

Eiji turned over his photo. "I got a shampoo," he said. "I think it's passion fruit flavored."

"What about you, David?" they asked.

"I got a suitcase." He said.

There was silence.

_Back at Cauliflower...._

"Alright, how about at the count of three you all turn your photos over?" Sanada suggested, when everyone seemed reluctant to share. "1......2.....3!"

Everyone but Marui turned over his photo.

"That's not so bad," Sanada said, examining the photos. "Kintarou, looks like you got some sort of yogurt; Jirou got a cologne; Gakuto got a....zoo?"

"Yeah and I have no idea what the hell to do with it." Gakuto said blankly.

"And Kamio has a video game," Sanada concluded. "That's not so bad. We can decide on who helps who at our team meeting tonight. But the objects are pretty reasonable." Then he paused. "Wait a minute, we're missing someone. What's Marui's object?"

All the attention turned to Marui who was standing silently off to one side.

"What's yours?" they all asked.

He said nothing.

"Come on, it can't be that bad," said Niou. "Just show it."

Marui slowly held out the photograph for everyone to see. Then he turned it over.

It was a bra.

There was silence, then everyone burst out laughing.

"Not funny!" Marui shouted. "How am I supposed to advertise this, huh?! I'm more screwed than the publishers who rejected the first draft of Harry Potter!"

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**A/N: **

I have a poll in my profile that I'd like you all to take--it may be affecting later chapters of this story, so please take a look at it; you're helping me with the story by doing so. *slightly evil smile* Or you can just answer right now if you prefer: which is the most annoying PoT character?  
P.S. If your answer in the poll is "other", please specify to me. Thank you! :)


	8. Return of the Captains

**The Anti-Climactic Return of the Captains:  
**

**Really Bad Anagrams and Some Reverse Psychology **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

"And yet again we find ourselves in one of those situations where you'd really rather be melted into a smoothie than experiencing the present moment," said Sanada. "But I'm not affected by it, so who cares?"

Everyone on Rikkaidai's team stared at him. Jirou had been semi-fired that morning, when Yukimura had unexpectedly returned to Cauliflower. Yukimura was a bit pale and had circles under his eyes, but other than that, he seemed relatively stable.

"I'm very proud that you guys managed to scrape another win in the second challenge," Yukimura announced. "Even though you didn't really deserve it. I hope that you all continue to work hard through this next challenge, even if it's, as Sanada said, so bad that you'd rather be melted into a smoothie."

Contemplative silence.

"Right," Yukimura shifted his weight so that his crutches weren't cutting into him quite as much as they were before. "I've heard that the redheads of this team are the participators, but that they must pick group members to aid them in making their commercials. Am I correct?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"In that case, Gakuto, Jirou, Kintarou, Kamio, and Marui have a big responsibility in these next ten days. They must collect a band of friends to help them out in the formation of perfect commercials."

"And anyone who does badly gets bitch-slapped by Yours Truly," Sanada added.

Everyone gasped.

"Gen-chan, not _yet_," Yukimura hissed under his breath. Then he brightened and straightened up. "I trust that you all have been pondering the meaning of your objects since you received them. I would now like the redheads to choose their groups members."

Silence, and then shuffling as the redheads began to form teams. Basically, everyone banded together with a few people from their original school, except for Kamio, who grouped with Kirihara, Hiyoshi, and Shinji because the four of them had formed a special bond during the poetry times and wanted to be together for the rest of their lives.

"Right," Yukimura looked around approvingly and nodded at each of the groups. "Well, I'm basically going to leave you to it now. While I won't be specifically monitoring what goes into your commercials, I will be coming around for a progress check after the first three days. Don't screw up."

"Yes sir!" they all said, saluting him.

"Thank you," said Yukimura. "And now I'm going to go throw up blood, so if you'll excuse me....."

"Ewww......" They all parted to let Yukimura hobble out of the room, supported by Sanada and Yanagi on either side.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

At the same time, Oishi was just at the point of finishing his own team meeting and dismissing the groups. "Alright then! You've all got your groups, so now it's just a matter of—"

"Whew! Sorry I'm late guys, what'd I miss?"

Everyone turned at the sound of a door opening. In walked Tezuka, carrying an enormous pina colada in one hand and a beach towel in another. He looked very tan.

They stared at him.

"....where _were_ you?" Oishi finally asked, speaking for everyone.

"Me?" Tezuka adjusted his eyeglasses delicately. "I went to the bathroom. You know that."

Momoshiro's eye twitched.

"You've been in the bathroom for over a week," he informed Tezuka.

"My zipper got stuck." Tezuka said.

There was a very awkward silence for a few minutes before Oishi cleared his voice.

"Well...uh....we were just talking about the third challenge," he said. "It's one that applies to redheads primarily, so David, Eiji, and Sengoku are our main participants. They have to advertise objects that Ryuzaki gave them with the help of a small group of friends."

"I see," Tezuka said unconcernedly, examining his fingernails. "Have you split up into groups, then?"

"We were just about to—"

"Oh, I forgot to ask," Tezuka interrupted. "How did the second challenge go?"

Everyone exchanged nervous glances.

"Well...." Oishi showed Tezuka the scoring sheet and began to explain.

"....and then they said that repeating decimals were special or something and that we lost because we didn't have them." Oishi finished.

"Shit!" Tezuka said.

"What is it?" they all jumped.

"Oh, nothing. I thought I had a tan line. Never mind, false alarm." He said, releasing the hem of his shirt, where he had been examining his naval.

"I wasn't really listening to anything you guys just said," Tezuka admitted to everyone. "But I know one thing: and that's that I'm tired of all this foreplay! Let's just skip to the part where you guys begin brainstorming for your advertisements!"

Then he pulled some magic-y Tezuka Zone stuff on them, and it was so.

* * *

**Group I (Seigaku): Suitcase  
David-Saeki-Bane-Itsuki**

"Well, I guess we're on our own now since Tezuka's officially lost his mind and the team is completely incompetent," said Itsuki heavily. Then he smiled.

"What?" asked Saeki.

"Oh, nothing, I just realized that "own" and "now" have the same letters."

"....."

"It sort of amused me," he explained.

Bane was the first to shake his head and tear his incredulous eyes from Itsuki's face. "We might as well start brainstorming for how to advertise this suitcase," he said. "I have a feeling that we're going to need a lot of work, seeing as how last time we managed to lose even when we really won."

David made a petulant noise. The second challenge was still a sensitive topic for him.

They sat around thinking in silence for a few moments.

"Well, how in _hell_ are you supposed to advertise a suitcase?" David finally asked. "Just off the top of my head, that's about the least sexy object I can think of!"

"More importantly, how can you make something so utterly mundane desirable to a large group of people?" Saeki wondered.

"Well, let's think about it objectively," said Bane. "What makes a good suitcase?"

They thought some more.

"Weight is important," said Saeki finally. "If you're going to be toting it around the airport all day, you want it to be relatively lightweight."

"And easy to move," Bane added. "With good wheels and a comfortable handle."

"A comfortable handle." David echoed.

"Yeah," said Itsuki. "Very important for a good suitcase." He blew some air out of his nose for good measure.

"So, what the hell am I supposed to say?" David snapped. "'Oh, I love this suitcase, it feels so good in my hand!'?!"

"For example," said Saeki complacently.

"That'll convince no one!" David shouted.

"Relax, Dude, we just have to make a more convincing way of saying it," said Bane. "Commercials are nothing more than a convincing way of saying absolute bullshit. I don't think it's very difficult; we'll just write up a persuasive-as-hell script and then memorize it! David can do a live action presentation of our script with the suitcase then!"

"Excellent! I'll write the script!" Saeki volunteered. "I'm great at persuasion!"

Since no one else wanted to write, they all agreed to let Saeki do the script.

Saeki wrote feverishly for about ten minutes, pausing every now and then, until he proclaimed himself done. "Check this!" he said breathlessly, handing it over.

David scanned it, and began to blush. "I—I can't read this!" he stuttered.

"Why the hell not?" Saeki looked annoyed.

"I don't know…it's…wrong!" said David.

"It's not _wrong_!" said Saeki crossly. "It's just talking about a suitcase!"

"But you somehow made it sound really....." said David again. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. But there was something funny about the way that Saeki had written the script. And not funny in a good way. "I don't know about this." David said.

"Come on man, it'll be great!" Bane and Itsuki pressed, leaning over to see what Saeki had written. "Just read the script like Saeki wrote it and it'll be fine! It's a freaking SUITCASE, for Godssake!"

"Well, I guess you're right....." Muttered David, shaking his head. "We'd better begin being productive!"

Itsuki snickered.

"_Anagrams aren't funny!_" they all screamed.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Group II (Rikkaidai): Zoo  
Gakuto-Choutarou-Shishido **

Gakuto and Choutarou sat together on a zoo bench. A few moments later, Shishido appeared, carrying lemonades for the three of them.

"It must be nice to have a bitch," Gakuto commented to Choutarou.

"I'm not your bitch! Or _his_ bitch!" Shishido shouted, gesturing angrily at Choutarou with his head. "I'm just nice enough that if Choutarou has a reasonable request, I'll grant it for him!"

"Sure…" Gakuto grinned evilly.

Choutarou had agreed to help Gakuto because he was a nice person. Shishido had come along solely to be with Choutarou, and Gakuto was getting on both of their nerves.

"Thank you, Shishido-senpai," said Choutarou sweetly, accepting the strawberry lemonade from him. "Oh, and you put fresh strawberries on it! How sweet!" he gave Shishido a glowing smile.

Shishido smiled back and shoved a plain lemonade that was leaking on one side into Gakuto's lap before taking a seat next to Choutarou with his own drink.

Gakuto rolled his eyes as Shishido and Choutarou took sips of their drinks in perfect unison. Damn doubles techniques.

"So," said Gakuto sharply, feeling that he was being ignored, "we're here to collect ideas. We should be thinking about how to create an effective commercial."

"I don't see how you can advertise a zoo to an old woman," said Shishido sourly, eying a group of children in colorful baseball caps as they passed. "Mostly only parents and their five year old kids come here."

"Well, we'll have to find a way!" Gakuto snapped. "So quit being so negative! I didn't ask _you_ to join my group!"

"Well, I didn't ask to _be_ here!" Shishido retorted, his temper firing up.

"Shishido…please," Choutarou sweetly intervened. "Let's try not to argue amongst ourselves. Let's all observe the animals like we had originally planned, and try to get ideas."

Gakuto and Shishido glared at eachother before both saying, "Fine."

They observed the animals in silence.

After several minutes, Shishido broke the silence again. "That one looks like Gakuto," he whispered to Choutarou, pointing to a platypus. But it was one of those fake whispers, that was really loud enough for Gakuto to hear.

Choutarou giggled.

"Okay, _that's_ it!" shouted Gakuto, rising to his feet, though he was so short it hardly made a difference. "I didn't bring you guys here so you could have a cute little date! Or so that you could make fun of me! I want some _serious_ input on the progress of this commercial!"

"Gakuto, relax!" cooed Choutarou. "We are making prog—"

"No, we're not!" Gakuto shouted. "There's no way this is going to work if we don't really apply ourselves!" Gakuto suddenly had a stroke of inspiration. He turned to Choutarou.

"What we need," Gakuto said, "even more than ideas about how to make animals appealing, are some _persuasion tactics_. And I've somehow got the feeling that _you_, Choutarou, are very good at persuading people to do things!"

"What gives you that idea?" Choutarou asked confusedly. He suddenly turned to Shishido. "Shishido-senpai, will you please go get me a hot dog?" he asked, making adorable puppy eyes.

"Sure," Shishido got up to go get it.

"Like _that_!" Gakuto cried once Shishido was out of earshot. "How did you get him to do that for you?!"

"Well, I'm nice to him." Said Choutarou.

"Yes, but I can't seduce the audience in this case…obviously…" said Gakuto, mostly to himself. He looked up at Choutarou. "Well, don't you know any other tactics of persuasion?"

"I don't know…" Choutarou said pensively, putting a hand to his chin. "Reverse psychology can work well if used effectively."

"What do you mean?" Gakuto cocked and eyebrow suspiciously.

"It's like playing hard-to-get," Choutarou explained. "I pretend I don't like someone and I cold shoulder him just to get him to like me more."

"Are you sure that really works?" Gakuto asked, frowning.

"Sure. It depends a little on the personality of the person in question, but other than that…"

"I want to see this," said Gakuto.

"Observe," said Choutarou.

Shishido returned with the hot dog. "Here you go!" he said. "I got it with onions and relish, like you like it!"

"Oh, thanks Shishido-senpai!" said Choutarou with an angelic smile. "I'll just pay you back…"

"What? No!" Shishido said. "It's fine!"

"No, no, I'd feel terrible if I—" began Choutarou.

"Choutarou, drop it. It's fine!" said Shishido. "Very sweet of you to offer, though."

Choutarou smiled brilliantly.

"I see!" Gakuto muttered under his breath. "By pretending to want to pay, Choutarou makes Shishido want to pay even more! If this same concept could be applied to business......"

Gakuto was lost in thought. "Then we'll try it!" he declared. "We'll trick everyone in our commercial! We'll tell them NOT to come to the zoo and it will make desperately want to come to the zoo! It's genius! Absolutely genius!"

"What?" Shishido looked around at Gakuto, who had leapt up to stand on the bench.

"With the power of reverse psychology, no one will be able to resist the zoo!"

"Okay, wait a minute. Let me get this straight," Shishido said, squeezing his eyes shut like he couldn't believe it. "You're going to convince everyone to _come_ to your zoo by telling them _not to come_ to your zoo?"

"Exactly! We'll make the zoo sound really UNappealing and try to keep them out, and it will make people wild to get in! Oh, geez, I've got to write this down before I forget it!" Gakuto scrambled for a paper and pen.

"That's a great idea, Gakuto-senpai!" said Choutarou, winking at him.

Shishido frowned. "I feel like I'm missing something here…"

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**A/N: **

Dis...claimer?: Apologies to Yukimura for semi-making fun of his illness...It's very sad to be sick and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not even an animated character.

On the other hand, look forward to interesting effects of reverse psychology and other advertising techniques!


	9. Evil Penguins of the Arctic

**Evil Penguins of the Arctic**

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**Group III: Shampoo  
Eiji-Oishi-Aoi-Inui **

"We definitely have to win this time!" said Eiji passionately, pounding one fist into his open palm. "If we don't, Radish might be at a point where we can't make a comeback and beat Cauliflower!"

"Hear, hear!" Oishi cried. "Your commercial will be the best, Eiji! I swear on the black things coming out of my head!"

That kind of disturbed everyone, but they said nothing.

Out of respect for the second years, Eiji had only asked Oishi and Inui to help him out with his commercial. Aoi had somehow ended up in their group as well, but only because he had offered his help enthusiastically, and they were too nice to turn him down.

"Alright, so your object is Passion Fruit Flavored Herbal Shampoo." Said Oishi. "First of all, what data do you have on that, Inui?"

"Well, passion fruit is a kind of fruit that grows primarily in South America, and herbs are leafy plants that are valued for their scent, taste, or other qualities. So right off the bat, it really makes no sense that they called it Passion Fruit Herbal Shampoo. Herbs and fruits are entirely different things. Which one is it? Is it a fruity shampoo or an herbal one? Because it can't possibly be both! I use Pantene ProV, by the way."

Inui concluded his speech.

They all considered this.

"Maybe it's made with BOTH passion fruit and herbs?" Eiji suggested. He opened the top of the bottle and inhaled deeply. "It smells really good!"

"Right. Thank you for that interesting background, Inui," said Oishi.

"No problem," he said.

"Now for the most pressing issue," said Oishi. "What kind of advertisement do we want to make?"

"I want it to be really colorful!" Eiji cried. "With lots of bubbles and rainbows and happy people flipping their hair around!"

"Hm," said Oishi. "Does this mean we're making a live action commercial?"

"She didn't really specify whether it had to be live or taped," said Aoi. "I think we can choose."

"Well I want it filmed!" said Eiji. "I bet all the other groups are doing live-action, so we'll be unique if we make a video! And anyway, if we film it then we can go back through and edit, adding rainbows and bubbles!"

"Of course," said Oishi complacently. "But what will the actual commercial be comprised of?"

"Might I suggest that we have someone with really ugly hair use the shampoo and suddenly have gorgeous hair?" Inui offered. "That would be a good commercial."

"Pretty cliché, but yeah," Oishi agreed.

"Yeah, we could have someone totally hideous in the beginning use the shampoo and then morph into a super hot person." Eiji said enthusiastically. "But who would play who…?"

"Can I play the lead role?!" Aoi burst out. "I've always wanted to be a celebrity!" his eyes had stars in them.

They looked at one another.

"I suppose if you're willing to play the ugly person, then sure," said Oishi.

"Of course! I don't care who I am; I just want to get some screen time. It's finally my time to be a star!"

"Then who plays the hot person?" asked Inui.

"Well, I think we can all agree that Eiji has the best hair," said Oishi finally. "It's so colorful and thick and bouncy."

"Indeed," they agreed.

"So Eiji should play the role of the transformed person," Oishi concluded.

"Yes, my data does indeed show that Eiji has the highest percentage of sexiness out of the four of us....." Inui agreed.

"Aw, shucks," said Eiji, blushing.

"….which isn't really saying much, considering that he was up against Captains Revolting and Hideous," Inui finished, gesturing to Oishi and Aoi. "But still."

"HEY!" the three other group members shouted. Then they stopped, confused.

"Wait, why am _I_ mad?" Eiji asked himself.

Inui took advantage of their confusion to change the subject. "What're Oishi and I supposed to do?" he asked.

"Well......I can be the director," said Oishi, snapping out of his pensive moment. "And Inui can be...an ice cream vendor."

"Why an ice cream vendor?" they all asked.

"You know, we could have something like, Aoi goes to buy ice cream and then the vendor tells him to try the shampoo and then he...turns into Eiji. Or something....." Oishi trailed off.

"That was pretty much the worst idea I've ever heard in my life, but I can't think of anything better," said Inui. "Let's do it!"

"Time to film!" Aoi bounced up.

"No, not yet!" they said. "We don't even have a camera yet. We'll meet back here at Eiji's house the day after tomorrow to film. Sound good to everyone?"

"Works for me."

"Good. I think my mom must have finished the pancakes by now. Let's go!"

"Yay!" they all sped out of the room and raced to Eiji's kitchen.

**XxXxXxXxX**

**Group IV: Health Insurance  
Sengoku-Atsushi-Mizuki-Ryou**

Everyone in group four was lying flat on his back in Sengoku's bedroom, drooling and staring at the ceiling.

"Well, I'm stumped." Said Atsushi flatly, moving to sit up, and banging his head on Sengoku's bedside table. "There's no way to advertise health insurance. There just _isn't_."

"Man, I knew I should have gotten out of tennis when I had the chance," Sengoku groaned, covering his face with his hands. "I was so close to choosing boxing, too. _So damn close_."

"I'm glad you stuck with tennis," Mizuki volunteered.

"Why's that? So you could hit on me like the closet pervert you are?" Sengoku snapped.

"Nfu. Of course not. It's because—"

Ryou lifted his head off the floor to glare at Mizuki. "Don't you _dare _say you like the data."

"It's because—"

"And don't say a word about Yuuta!"

Mizuki shut his mouth because those were all the lines he had. Mizuki was only in the group because he had been willing to help and Sengoku figured that he could use him as a tool later.

Ryou dropped his head back onto the floor. "Our _parents_ deal with this kind of stuff," he said. "I don't know shit about health insurance. Does Ryuzaki seriously expect that we know anything about it?"

"Probably not. I bet she knows how much this confuses us," said Sengoku miserably. "Wretched old hag."

"I think health insurance is basically just supposed to be like a reliable source of backup money in the case that you get into an unexpected accident." Atsushi unexpectedly offered.

"How do you know that?" Ryou frowned. "I thought I was the smart twin!"

"I just remember because when I was six, I broke my arm and I remember Mom taking me to the hospital and arguing with the insurance companies over the phone," Atsushi explained, shrugging.

"You broke your arm when you were six?" Sengoku asked, not because he was interested, but just because he wanted to talk about anything but the issue at hand.

"Yeah. That was the last time I did origami." Said Atsushi.

There was silence. The other three exchanged looks, wondering how the hell Atsushi had managed to break his arm doing origami.

Mizuki broke the silence.

"I'm thirsty," he said, standing up, and balancing himself on the bedposts as he had a head rush. "If a certain _host_ would be so _polite_ as to point me in the direction of the kitchen…"

"Straight down the hallway and to the left." Sengoku said in a bored voice. "Take whatever you want."

Mizuki left the room.

The other three sighed and sat up, ready to think seriously about what had to be done.

"Guys, what do we do?" asked Ryou. "We need an idea_, fast_. It's already been five days since Ryuzaki issued the challenge!"

"Well, playing off what Atsushi said...." Sengoku said. "About insurance being like back-up money in the case of accidents....we could create some sort of scenario where someone gets into an accident, but then gets saved by his insurance."

"It would work, but we wouldn't get many style points," said Atsushi. "I mean, it's not very creative."

"Then we could..." Sengoku trailed off, staring at the door that Mizuki had left slightly ajar when he left the room. Then Sengoku was overwhelmed by a stroke of incredible brilliance.

"Oh......my.....God....." he said. "I've just had the best idea _ever_."

"What is it?" the twins asked in unison.

"Check this!" Sengoku turned to them excitedly. "We make a commercial about some guy who keeps getting into horrible accidents over and over and pays for them with his insurance!"

"And....?"

"_And we can make Mizuki play the part of the guy who gets beaten up!_"

There was a pause.

"That's....bloody brilliant!" Ryou cried. "Not only would that be a complete seller, but it would also be a free excuse to do what Prince of Tennis fans have been wanting to do for years!"

"What's that?" they asked.

"Beat the shit out of Mizuki!"

"Hurrah!" they all shouted.

"But…how will we convince Mizuki to do it?" Atsushi asked. "_I_ wouldn't play that part if _I _were him."

Sengoku frowned. "He has a crush on Fuji, doesn't he?" he asked.

"Yuuta?" they all exclaimed.

"No. Syuusuke." Said Sengoku as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Why don't we just ask Syuusuke to ask Mizuki to do it? There's no way Mizuki would refuse if his _prince_ asked!"

"And....there's no way that Fuji would refuse to ask if he knew that he would be hurting someone by doing so!" Ryou finished for him triumphantly. "You're so right! That could totally work!"

When Mizuki came back into the room a moment later, he had to keep asking why the other three kept laughing evilly under their breath and rubbing their hands together.

**XxXxXxXxX**

**Group V: Yogurt  
Kintarou-Shiraishi-Ishida-Chitose-Oshitari **

"So I have this really cute yogurt!" Kintarou squealed. "And I want to make a commercial with penguins in it!"

"Why penguins?" Shiraishi asked.

"It'll be cute!" said Kintarou, beaming. "They'll be waddling around in the arctic and stuff and then this cool yogurt will pop out of nowhere and psych everyone out!"

"While that's a fine idea, I'm not sure that anyone here knows how to do digital animation well enough to pull that off." Said Chitose.

"Oh, but I wasn't going to animate it!" Kintarou cried. "We'll get live penguins! We can kidnap them from Gakuto's gay zoo!"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Ishida seriously. "Even though I probably could take on three or four of them with one Hadoukyuu."

"Fine then, we could dress up as penguins!" Kintarou said.

They exchanged raised eyebrows.

"Alright then, what's _your_ idea?" Kintarou pouted.

Oshitari picked up the yogurt and examined it. "Well, it's only ten calories per cup," he noted. "We could probably make that really appealing, especially to girls."

Chitose raised his hand. "I suggest that we somehow throughout the commercial put in repeated references to the fact that we are sort of related to people from other teams." He said.

They all stared.

"What does that have to do with yogurt, though?" Kintarou finally asked.

"Nothing," Chitose admitted. "But think about it! Ishida here is related to that guy from Fudomine, Oshitari is related to that Hyoutei guy, and I'm.....well, I'm _something,_ I think. I have some sort of weird connection with Tachibana that's never fully explained."(1)

"You have a point," said Shiraishi, after a pause. "I suppose it would be kind of funny if we made references to the fact that our school is comprised of a bunch of relatives of main characters."

"But what does that have to do with YOGURT!?" Kintarou cried.

"Kintarou-chan, you're going to have to work as a team member if this is ever going to work," said Oshitari calmly. "And I happen to think that they have some very fine ideas. The yogurt will come later."

"So let's review what we've got so far," said Ishida. He drew up a piece of paper.

_1. Penguins and the Arctic  
2. Low Calories  
3. Relatives of Main Characters_

"That seems like a pretty good start," said Chitose, nodding. "Now we just sort of have to string it all together."

"Okay, so....how about we're all in the arctic, chilling and eating out," Shiraishi began. Then he stopped and smiled. "Chilling in the arctic! Haha! That wasn't even intended, I swear!"

They all had a good laugh.

"Right, but anyway," Shiraishi stopped laughing. "How about this: We're all hanging out in the arctic and then we see some really fat guy and make fun of him. Then just as he starts to cry, a penguin comes up and gives him yogurt to lose weight with!"

"Where does the relatives part come in, then?" Chitose asked.

Shiraishi opened his mouth and then shut it again. He thought for a moment.

"Well....we could just be making jokes about it the whole time," he said finally. "Like, we'll say: Oh, hi ISHIDA, nice to see your HEAD COVERED! And then Oshitari walks in and we'll say: Oh, hi OSHITARI, I was wondering, could you help me with my math homework since you're a TENSAI!? OH, WAIT! WRONG COUSIN!"

They all laughed some more, but Oshitari looked mildly offended.

"That would be pretty funny," admitted Kintarou. "Then I could dress up like Koshimae and do his twist serve!"

There was silence.

"Yeah...that just doesn't make sense." Said Shiraishi finally.

Kintarou pouted.

"And then in the end," Shiraishi continued, "I could burst into the scene looking all handsome and dashing in a superman cape and I could unwrap the bandages on my arms and strangle one of the penguins!"

"YEAH!" they all said. Then they thought about it a little bit more.

"Wait, why would we want to strangle one of the penguins?" asked Kintarou confusedly. "I thought the penguins were good. They bring in the yogurt."

"Oh...you're right," Shiraishi looked bummed. Then he smiled. "Well, this one can be an _evil_ penguin that's been pissing all the other ones off! So by killing it, I'm saving the day!"

"Perfect!" they all shouted. "An evil penguin!"

"My, my, I think we've got enough ideas now!" said Chitose. "Let's start writing a script!"

They all took out pens and paper and began writing out their crazy script.

"I see how Shiraishi got elected captain of the team!" Kintarou cried. "He's a freaking genius!"

"Who's going to play the fat guy?" Shiraishi asked.

They looked around awkwardly.

"Well, who has the biggest ass out of all of us?" asked Shiraishi reasonably. "That'll be a good indicator as to who weighs the most."

"Not me!" said Kintarou.

Everyone tried not to look at Ishida.

"Hey, I'm not the fattest!" Ishida shouted, realizing that they were all glancing at him out of the corners of their eyes. "It's pure muscle! Chitose's clearly the fattest!"

"Hey!" Chitose shouted. "I am not fat!"

"Actually you kind of are," Shiraishi noted. "I'd never really noticed it before. You're like a whale!"

"It's...baby fat!" Chitose cried, tears forming in his eyes.

"Tell that to your ass," Oshitari said.

"Okay, so Chitose will play the fat guy," said Shiraishi, making a note on the script. "I, obviously, will be playing the handsome and dashing superhero who strangles the penguin and teases the fat guy. Who wants to be my accomplice?"

They all raised their hands.

"Well, Kintarou, you're too cute," said Shiraishi. "You have to be a penguin because you're the smallest!"

"Aw, you're right!" said Kintarou.

"And the next smallest is Oshitari," said Shiraishi. "So he should be a penguin, too. My accomplice shall be....Ishida!"

"Sweet." Said Ishida.

"Now, who wants to be the _evil _penguin?" Shiraishi asked. "I vote for Oshitari."

"Alright," he said.

"Which leaves Kintarou as the good penguin who brings in the yogurt."

"Aw, but I wanted live-action penguins in my commercial!" said Kintarou sadly.

"It would be too difficult to train real penguins to hold yogurt," Shiraishi said reasonably. "And getting the timing perfect would be hell."

"Looks like we've got a good start then," said Oshitari. "We might as well start thinking about our costumes and get to rehearsing!"

They got up to start the process.

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

A/N

(1) I have no idea how Chitose is connected to Tachibana; I think I zoned out during the part where they explained it.... But give me a break! PoT has so many boring and unnecessary explanations for everything!

If you were wondering about the random 'Mizuki likes Fuji' thing, it's just sort of a reference to another story of mine, Classicism :D

Do penguins even live in the arctic?


	10. Fear You REALLY Can't Forget

**Fear You REALLY Can't Forget**

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**Group VI: Video Game  
Kamio-Kirihara-Shinji-Hiyoshi **

Kamio met with his group in the living room of his house. Since he had decided that third years were lame, he had only invited second years to help make his commercial. Kirihara, Shinji, and Hiyoshi were his new groupies.

"So what now?" asked Hiyoshi, feeling that someone should break the awkward silence.

"Well, I haven't got it too bad," Kamio admitted. "It shouldn't be hard to come up with an advertisement for a video game."

"What game is it?" Shinji asked.

"Dunno," Kamio frowned at the title. "Resident Evil 37: Fear You Really, _Really_ Can't Forget. (1) Never heard of it."

"Oh, I played the first three Resident Evils," said Kirihara. "I didn't know that they were still making them, though."

"Looks like some sort of horror game," said Hiyoshi.

"Really? What tipped you off? Was it the title or the fact that the cover has pictures of people with chainsaws on it?" Kirihara asked sarcastically.

"Shut up," Hiyoshi blushed. "I will _Gekokujou_ your ass."

"Usually video game commercials just show a few scenes from the game and show how fun it is to play." Kamio interrupted. "We could just film one of us playing and then be like, 'wow, that was so fun.'"

"Fair idea," Shinji conceded. "But we don't really know anything about this game."

There was a pause.

"One of us should try it out," Kamio said finally. "Just play for an hour or so to get the feel of the game, and then once we know its features, we can easily advertise those."

"That works," said Shinij. "But I don't want to play it. It looks gay."

"I don't want to play either," said Hiyoshi. "I don't like fears you can't forget. I like to forget my fears. I'm still having nightmares about The Ring."

"Are you fucking kidding?" Kirihara said. "That movie came out like five years ago!"

"It still creeps me out...." Said Hiyoshi, suddenly looking nervous and shooting shifty glances at the television on the other side of the room.

"You are so unbelievably lame!" Kamio said in disgust. "Screw it; _I'll_ try out the game."

He stood up and tore the plastic wrapping off the game and began to hook up his Wii system.

Hiyoshi ran out of the room in terror and Shinji muttered something about getting a glass of water and never came back.

So Kamio rolled his eyes and pressed 'start' while Kirihara happily took a seat beside him. "If you get scared, just tell me and I'll take over." Kirihara said happily, nestling into the seat with a bag of potato chips. "This should be fun!"

"Not really," said Kamio. "I'm stopping as soon as I think I have a grasp of the game's features..."

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx  
**

**Group VII: Bra  
Marui-Niou-Yagyuu-Jackal **

Marui, Niou and Yagyuu sat around in a circle. In the center of the circle was a white bra with pale yellow rose blossoms on it. They were all staring at it.

"I have no idea what to do," said Marui. "It was bad enough going into that shop and buying this, but now I don't even know what to do with it."

"Well, what do girls look for in a bra?" Jackal asked.

"I have no idea! I'm a guy!" Marui shouted.

"Maybe we should watch Victoria's Secret commercials to get an idea. I have some taped." said Yagyuu, sliding towards the t.v. set.

"No!" Marui shouted, leaping up and grabbing him, forcing him to sit down again. "Victoria's Secret just shows hot girls in lingerie! Not only is that NOT an option for my commercial, but I don't want you getting all distracted!"

"Wait a minute!" Niou suddenly sat up. "There's not going to be any hot girls in lingerie in your commercial?"

"Obviously not." Said Marui.

"Then what the _hell_ am I doing here?!" he asked, more himself than anyone else. "Why am I helping you?"

"Because...you're my _friend?_" Marui asked sarcastically. "And you can't back out now!"

"How exactly do you plan on creating a commercial for a bra _without_ a girl involved?" Jackal asked calmly.

There was silence as Marui fiddled with a hole in his sock and said nothing.

"You're kidding," said Yagyuu. "You really had no plans for inviting any girls? Were _you_ planning on modeling the bra yourself?"

"I wasn't going to have anyone model it," Marui mumbled. "I thought I could just…talk about why it's good."

"And do you know why it's good?"

"I already said I don't! I don't know what makes a good bra!"

"Well, sexiness is obviously important." Said Yagyuu. "It's probably the most important thing."

They all agreed on that point.

"But aside from that, what do girls look for in bras?" Niou wondered aloud.

"No matter how you spin it, it's obvious that we need girls for this commercial," Yagyuu said flatly. "Having a girl here will not only provide us with the answers to all these questions, but it will also eliminate the need for any cross-dressing on our part, which I think is a very huge perk."

"He's right." Niou sighed. "Marui.....you are either very lucky or very unlucky. You're going to need to find a girl and convince her to be a part of this commercial."

"I don't know any girls!" Marui whined.

"What a loser," they laughed.

"You're my teammates, who do you know?" Marui asked. Then he was suddenly stricken by inspiration. "Wait a minute!" He looked at Yagyuu and Niou excitedly. "You both have sisters, don't you? We can ask _them_!"

Niou and Yagyuu exchanged skeptical looks.

"My sister's in college," said Niou. "I'm not calling her up to ask her what girls like in a bra."

"Well, what about _your_ sister, Yagyuu?" Marui said desperately, turning to the boy with glasses.

"She's six," said Yagyuu.

"And I'm an only child," said Jackal before Marui could ask.

"Figures." Said Marui. "I wouldn't want to repeat a mistake like you, either."

"Bastard!" Jackal got up and left.

"Guys, what do we do?" Marui gripped his hair. "I can't believe what losers we are, we seriously don't know any girls. The only ones I can even think of off the top of my head are Fuji's older sister and that one chick from Fudomine!"

"We could probably get in contact with one of them," Niou said sagely. "We'd just have to ask one of the Fuji brothers for the phone number, or else get Ann's info from someone from Fudomine. I bet Kamio knows her number, they're like married or something."

"So it's between approaching Fuji or Kamio?" Marui clarified.

A pause.

"Kamio." they all said in unison.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

**Group VIII: Cologne  
Jirou-Atobe-Oshitari **

"Would you like coffee, tea, champagne, juice, soda, water, or milk?"

Atobe waved away the butler with a careless gesture of his hand. "We have enough for now, you may return to your station."

The butler bowed and retreated, walking backwards.

Atobe buttered himself a crumpet before speaking to his two guests.

"Would you like to go swimming after this?"

"Sounds like a fine idea," said Oshitari.

Jirou nodded. "It'll wake me up. But…"

"But what?" Atobe asked, narrowing his eyes.

"When are we going to start working on the commercial?" Jirou asked in a small voice.

Jirou wasn't sure if he was glad or not that he had ended up in a group with Atobe and Oshitari to make the commercial. He knew that Atobe had more than enough resources to make their commercial the best out of everyone's, but on the other hand, he was also arrogant and lazy, meaning that he had not taken the slightest step to get started on the advertisement, although it was due the day after tomorrow. Oshitari was no more motivated.

"Getting nervous, are we?" Atobe raised his eyebrows. "I told you I would help you, didn't I? Do you think that I'm just planning on swimming and wasting my time without getting work done?"

"Uh...." In truth, that was exactly what Jirou thought, but he figured that it wasn't a good idea to say that out loud.

Atobe rolled his eyes, guessing his thoughts. "Relax," he said. "I've already got it all figured out for you. They should be arriving any moment now."

"…"

"…_Who_ should be arriving?" Jirou asked nervously.

"Your reinforcements for your cologne commercial." Said Oshitari. "Atobe has been on the job since day one."

"What did you do?" Jirou asked, confused.

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get that," said Oshitari, standing up immediately and leaving the room.

"It just so happens that my father is friends with the corporate CEO of the company that made the cologne you're advertising." Atobe explained to Jirou. "I've ordered some resources to help you with the commercial."

"Resources…?" Jirou asked nervously.

Oshitari reappeared in the room. "They say that they need you to sign for it," he informed Atobe in a bored voice. "Something about international policy…"

Atobe rolled his eyes and got up after tossing his napkin on the table. Jirou followed him to the front door. His jaw dropped.

In Atobe's foyer area was an enormous box, most likely filled with clothes and props. But behind that stood a marvelous, shining, slate-colored Lamborghini, and next to _that _there were three tall, slender, exotic looking women, wearing sunglasses and checking out the area.

"Sign here for importing foreign models," the delivery man instructed. Atobe signed on the line.

"And have a nice day," he said, tipping his hat and leaving.

"Is this enough for your commercial?" Atobe asked a shocked Jirou. "I was considering a helicopter, but in the end I decided on the car. I ordered a few Emporio Armani suits for you that you can wear during the commercial. Then you can drive onto the stage in the Lamborghini and get out, posing with Giselle, Annalise, and Maya here. I think that should convince everyone that this cologne is worth buying."

"Was all this…_necessary_?" Jirou choked out.

"You obviously know nothing of commercial-making," said Atobe silkily. "The point is that you're supposed to come off as the most sexy, successful, rich bastard there is. Obviously, the ideal choice for a person to play the lead in this commercial would have been me, but since you're the group leader, you're obliged to play the lead role. And anyway, I got tickets to Disneyworld for the day that this is due, so I won't even be here for the presentation."

"You're—leaving?" Jirou asked in surprise.

"Yes. But Oshitari will be here," he said carelessly. "He'll applaud you at the presentation. All you have to do is dress up in these clothes I bought and enter the scene in this car and then walk with these women and then hold out the cologne. Everyone will love it."

"I guess…" said Jirou, a little uncertainly.

"Good. Right this way, ladies." Atobe offered out both his arms to the women and led them into the dining hall.

Jirou and Oshitari watched them go.

"This is either going to be the most awesome commercial in existence or the most epic failure of the twenty first century," Oshitari said, reading Jirou's mind.

Jirou gulped and the two followed Atobe back into the dining hall where the models had taken seats and Atobe was providing them with champagne. Oshitari took a seat right between them while Jirou hung back nervously.

"Um, Atobe?" Jirou said in a small voice. "This still doesn't really solve the problem of what I'm supposed to say in the commercial."

"Still complaining?" Atobe looked exasperated. "What more can I possibly do for you at this point?"

"Help me…write a script?" Jirou tried.

"Ore—_I_ have no time for that," said Atobe impatiently. "Get some minion of the other teams to write the script for you."

Jirou gasped. "But that's cheating!"

Oshitari raised an eyebrow. "Do you _really _care?"

"Nah," said Jirou, realizing this fact himself for the first time. "But who should I ask?"

"The best writer. Obviously." Said Atobe, now providing the women with toast.

"And who's that?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you? Who did best in the poetry challenge?"

"Kabaji," said Jirou.

"Indeed," said Atobe. "But something tells me that his particular talents wouldn't be very well suited for script-writing. You'll have to ask the second-best man."

"Kamio?" Jirou remembered.

Atobe nodded. "We'll go see him tomorrow and force him to write the script for us. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to show these women how to work the shower." He grinned knowingly.

"I'll help!" Oshitari shouted, jumping up to follow Atobe. The two pranced out of the room.

Jirou considered worrying about the commercial a little more, but then he realized that he didn't really care, so he went to sleep on the dining table instead.

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**A/N:**

(1) Resident Evil is a horror/adventure game. There's about five out right now; the advertisement for the fifth one always says: Resident Evil 5: Fear You Can't Forget. Hah.

Up Next: everyone bombards Kamio! :D


	11. The Door Opens

The Day Before the Third Challenge is Due:

**The Door Opens **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

At ten o'clock the next morning, a frayed and desperate Marui burst into the room where Kamio's group was meeting.

Brushing aside Shinji and Hiyoshi, he said, "Kamio, I—" before stopping short at the strange sight that met his eyes.

Kamio and Kirihara were both literally on the edges of their seats, eyes as round as quarters, less than five inches away from the television screen, playing Resident Evil with their mouths slightly agape.

"Uh, hey…Kamio?" Marui asked. "I was wondering if you could give me Tachibana Ann's telephone number."

There was silence except for the sounds of screaming, running, and wicked chainsaws coming from the videogame.

"Kamio?" Marui said again.

"Geghhe…" Was Kamio's response, without so much as turning around. Kirihara nodded in agreement.

"What the hell's wrong with them?" Marui asked in bewilderment, turning to Shinji.

"I don't know," said Shinji very seriously. "I'm actually a little worried; I called Tachibana to come check in on them. He ought to be here any moment. You see, I left them here to play Resident Evil so that we could get some ideas for the commercial. I come back one day later, and neither of them has moved. I think they've gotten really into the game or some—"

"OH MY GOD! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" Kirihara bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Marui and Shinji jumped and turned to see Kamio battling a possessed-looking priest. The priest lunged at Kamio and started gnawing his neck.

Kamio and Kirihara both screamed, in loud, painful shrieks. "OH MY GOD! KILL HIM, AKIRA!!!!" Kirihara screamed so loudly that every glass in the room cracked.

"I'M TRYING! HE'S GOT ME BY THE NECK!!!" Kamio shouted back.

But then Kamio managed to break loose. He stepped back, took aim with his gun, and shot the priest's head off. A slimy centipede wormed its way out from inside.

"Sick," they both said, then fell back into silence as they continued to play.

Marui and Shinji stood in stricken silence.

"…they've got it _bad_," said Marui finally. "How are you going to make the advertisement?"

"Wait until they beat the whole game, I guess," Shinji shrugged. "I won't be able to move them until it's over. Why did you say you came here anyway?"

"I need Ann's phone number," Marui said, forcing himself to peel his eyes away from the other two. "You wouldn't have it, would you?"

"No," said Shinji in a deadpan voice.

"Well where could I get it?"

"Kamio knows," said Shinji.

"Well, that's not really an _option_ now, is it?!" Marui snapped. Then he calmed himself. "What about her brother?"

"I wouldn't ask Tachibana," said Shinji. "He'll rip your head off if he thinks you're trying to get close to Ann. Kamio's the only guy he lets near her."

"God damn it! Where am I supposed to get a girl!?" Marui shouted, tearing at his hair. "I suppose next thing you'll be telling me to approach Fuji Syuusuke!"

Then he realized what he had just said, and they both laughed.

"Just wait for Kamio," Shinji suggested. "He'll come around…eventually."

At this point, the door suddenly opened again and in pranced Oshitari, Jirou, and Atobe.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" Shinji asked, bewildered.

They ignored Shinji and Marui and strode straight across the room to Kamio.

"Kamio, Darling, we need your services," said Atobe, cutting straight to the chase. "You are wanted for your exceptional writing abilities!"

"Mehhu," said Kamio.

"Kamio, I'm talking to you," said Atobe, leaning down to look at him directly.

"Get out of the way!" Kamio and Kirihara cried, both scrambling to look around Atobe at the television screen.

"There's no point trying to talk to him," said Shinji from the other side of the room. "He's been like that since he started playing Resident Evil. Doesn't register anything else."

"Hm," Atobe put one hand to his chin. Then in one swift motion, he crossed over to the video game system and pulled the plug.

What followed was the loudest screaming of terror and agony that the world has heard since the release date for the new Harry Potter movie was postponed. All the windows shattered as Kamio and Kirihara bellowed in frustration at all the data that they hadn't saved and Atobe had just lost them.

"Now that I have your attention," said Atobe, cleaning out his ear, "we need you, Kamio, to write a script for our group."

"_YOU BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU!_" was Kamio's eloquent response. He and Kirihara threw themselves at Atobe and began strangling him with his own tie. Oshitari and Hiyoshi came to the rescue, pulling them off Atobe.

Atobe looked slightly ruffled, and sat up, rearranging his collar.

"Does this mean you consent?" he asked.

"Of course not!" Kamio snapped, struggling to break the hold that Oshitari had on him. "I'll never help you now!"

"How about giving me Ann's telephone number?" Marui asked, coming over now that Kamio was off the game. "I need it for my commercial."

"You ruined everything!" sobbed Kirihara. "We had almost gotten to disk two!"

"How about it?" Atobe pressed again. "I'll pay you fifty bucks, we'll call it even."

"Never!"

"Okay fine, we'll say one hundred bucks, but no more than that!" said Atobe angrily. "Now get off your ass and start thinking!"

"I won't!" Kamio roughly broke free from Oshitari. He seemed to have regained some of his sense, because he didn't attack Atobe again, but he still looked very angry. "I'm not your writing service!"

"Then maybe you could be my _phonebook_," said Marui, annoyed at being cut out of the conversation. "It's an easy job, I swear."

"Why do you want to talk to Ann anyway?" Kamio asked.

"I need to ask her about her bra." Said Marui. Then he paused. "Okay, that came out wrong—"

"Kamio, _please_ write the script for us!" Jirou suddenly begged, putting his hands together in a praying gesture and dropping to his knees. "_Please_ write it! I don't even care if it's good, I just don't want to do it!"

"I don't think you have to worry about it being good if _you're_ writing it!" said Kamio.

There was a collective gasp.

Then Kirihara laughed and slapped Kamio high five.

Atobe stared at Kamio impassively for a long moment. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by the door opening. In walked Tachibana.

"Okay, we _seriously_ need to get a lock on that door," said Shinji, staring at it.

"Hey, I heard that Kamio was in trouble or something," said Tachibana, blithely strolling in and not noticing anything amiss. "What's going o—" he stopped dead at the sight of Atobe, Jirou, Marui, Kirihara, and Oshitari all surrounding Kamio. "What's this!?" he exclaimed.

"Hey, _I'm_ just here to get Ann's phone number," said Marui, forgetting what Shinji had told him earlier.

"You're…_what?_" Tachibana breathed.

Marui's eyes widened. "It's not what it sounds like!" he promised. "I just need to ask her a few questions about bras!"

"WHAT!?" Tachibana leapt onto Marui and started beating him up.

"So what do you say, Kamio?" Oshitari asked, turning back to the redhead and ignoring the fight completely. "We're paying customers here!"

"Are you guys really that persistent or are you just complete idiots?" Kamio asked. "Why would I have changed my mind in the last thirty seconds? It's going to take me all night to finish Resident Evil now! I'll never help you!"

The doorbell rang.

"Oh my God, does _everyone_ know we're here!?" Kirihara cried in exasperation, going to get the door. "What do you want!?" he roared as he flung the door open.

"Um, I was just delivering a pizza…" said the guy at the door nervously.

"Oh, that's mine," said Shinji coming over, and pulling out his wallet.

In the meantime, Hiyoshi had managed to pull Tachibana off Marui, who now had a black eye and was missing a few clumps of hair.

Atobe sighed. "Sorry Jirou. It seems you'll have to go scriptless, since Kamio is a bastard. I have no more business here. We'll just have no script. Let's go, the ladies are waiting in the car." Atobe snapped his fingers and the three of them began to leave.

"Ladies!?" Marui's head snapped up. "You have girls with you?"

"Three to be exact." Atobe said, pausing disdainfully as he put on his jacket. "They're visiting from Brazil."

Marui did some very quick thinking.

"Could I meet them?" he asked carefully. "It would mean a lot to me."

Atobe considered this, as he re-teid his shoe laces. Since Marui looked so pathetic and ragged, not to mention stupid with his new bald spots, and had gotten his ass kicked by a minor character, he agreed and Marui's request. The four of them parted together.

Kamio's group stared after them.

"Well, I'm off if there's no other problem." Said Tachibana, looking quite pleased with himself.

The door closed.

"...."

"Does it seem strangely silent in here?" Shinji asked, taking a bite of his pizza.

Kamio and Kirihara looked over at the game system.

"Think we have time to beat it before the third challenge begins?" Kamio asked.

"If we play all night."

"Better get started, then!"

They hooked the system back up and Shinji settled for watching them with his pizza.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

**Meanwhile.... **

The far more functional group of Eiji, Oishi, Aoi, and Inui were preparing to film their shampoo commercial, like good little students should. Everything was in place and Inui had brought in a high-tech camera for them to use for the duration of the commercial. Eiji was fluffing his luscious locks in preparation for his part, while Inui was pushing around a cart of ice cream for his role as the ice cream vendor. Oishi was prepping Aoi, the self proclaimed "star" and main character in the commercial, to do his part.

"Okay Aoi…you have one line." said Oishi, already tired out from the effort it had taken to get Aoi to stop being so hyper and bouncing around.

"One whole line!? _YAY!_" Aoi cried, absolutely thrilled that he got to be a star.

"Yeah, listen carefully," said Oishi, sucking in a deep breath. "Your line is: _When I was young, all the other kids in school and the teachers used to tease me because of my crew cut, but when I bought this fantastic shampoo, my classmates started to respect my hair!_"

"Okay, cool! So that's my line?" Aoi said breathlessly.

"Yep, that's it. You got it?"

"Of course! Bring on the camera, I'm ready!"

"Alright then," said Oishi, walking over to the camera and positioning himself behind it. "Remember to look sad for the first part of the sentence, but then look happy when you start talking about the shampoo." He reminded Aoi.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it!" said Aoi impatiently. "Just run the film!"

"Okay," Oishi cleared his throat. "3……2……1……and…_action!_" he pressed the 'record' button.

Aoi strolled out into the frame, looking sad and trailing his feet languorously. Then he looked at the camera and froze.

"....."

After about fifteen seconds of silence, Oishi pressed 'stop' on the camera.

"Aoi, what happened?" he asked, peering around the camera. "You froze up!"

"Y-yeah!" said Aoi. "I'm sorry, I just got stage fright for a minute there! I'm fine now!"

"Okay, then let's take two," said Oishi, pressing 'record' again.

Aoi walked sadly into the frame. He took a deep breath. "When I was young, all the teachers in school—"

Oishi pressed the 'stop' button.

"No, Aoi," he said, peering around the camera again. "The line is: 'when I was young, all the _other kids in school_ and the teachers used to tease me because of my crew cut, but when I bought this fantastic shampoo, my classmates started to respect my hair!' Got that?"

"Yeah, I've got it!" said Aoi happily. "That's pretty much what I said anyway. Let's do it again!"

"Okay…"

Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When I was young, all the other kids in school and the crew cuts—"

"Cut!" said Oishi, with a tinge of annoyance to his voice. "That's not right, Aoi! It's 'all the other kids and _the teachers'_, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I've got it!" said Aoi. "Go again!"

"Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When I was young, all the other kids in school and the teachers would tease my crew cut because of the fantastic shampoo that I bought!"

"Cut!" Oishi looked annoyed. "Aoi, they didn't tease you _after_ you bought the shampoo, did they?"

"Oh, right!" he said, slapping his forehead. "Silly me! Give me another chance, I'm sorry!"

Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When I was young, my teachers respected my hair because my classmates bought this fantastic shampoo—"

"Cut!" Oishi started looking desperate. "Aoi, are you sure you don't want someone else to do this line? Inui could do it!"

Inui nodded.

"Wha—no! No! I can do it!" Aoi cried, looking on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, I just wasn't concentrating! I know the line, I'll do it now!"

"Fine." Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When I bought this shampoo—"

"CUT!" Oishi screamed. "It's _when I was young_! And then you say that people made fun of you _until you bought the shampoo_!"

"I know! I know! I'm just nervous, sorry!" Aoi cried. "I can do it! Give me one more chance!"

Oishi ground his teeth and pressed 'record'.

"When I was young, my classmates made fun of my crew cut, but then when the teachers bought some respect, they started to shampoo—"

"Cut, CUT!"

"I can do it this time! I promise! I swear to God, I can do it!"

Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When my crew cut was young—"

"CUT!"

"I KNOW THE LINE! I swear to you, I know it! You're making me nervous! Just give me one more chance!"

Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When I respected my classmates, they teased—"

"NO, AOI! The classmates are _teasing your hair_, but they _respect you after you buy the shampoo_!"

"I've got it now! Run the film!"

Oishi pressed 'record'.

"When my respects shampooed my classmates—"

"CUT!"

"When I was shampooing my teachers—"

"CUT!"

"When I was young, my classmates crew cut my respects—"

"CUT, CUT, _CUT_!"

Oishi broke off, panting and very red in the face, while Eiji and Inui watched in awe.

Oishi took a deep breath. "Aoi, it's obvious that you're not quite ready for this line," he said in a would-be calm voice. "I'm sorry that I asked too much of you. But I'm going to have to ask you now to please exit the stage, now."

"No…senpai…please." Aoi's eyes bubbled with tears. "Senpai, ever since I was a child, it's been an ambition of mine to become a great actor. I know that that probably won't ever happen but…please. Just let me fulfill this little shard of a dream. Please let me." He shut his eyes and bowed. "I'm sorry for all these mistakes; I wasn't focusing. Please, I beg you, just give me one more chance!"

Oishi glanced at Eiji and Inui, who shrugged. Oishi turned back to Aoi. Although he didn't like to admit it, he had been very touched by that little speech.

"Alright Aoi," he said finally. "One more chance."

"Oh, thank you, senpai!" he cried joyfully, wiping his eyes. "You won't regret it!"

"I hope not…" Oishi repositioned himself behind the camera. "Ready?" he asked.

"Of course."

"Action!" Oishi pressed 'record'.

Aoi dragged his feet as he entered the scene. He sighed and looked at the camera.

"When I was young, my classmates and teachers used to tease my crew cut, but then I bought this fantastic shampoo and it OWNED their asses!"

Eiji, Oishi, and Inui stared, mouths hanging open.

"Oh, I am _awesome_!" Aoi cried, totally unaware that he had said anything wrong. "Who's awesome? _Aoi is!_ Bring on the next scene, baby!"

**XxXxXxXxX**

The rest of the groups also spent the final day of preparations perfecting their various techniques, arguing with their team members, and just generally being awesome. However, all the others were doing live-action commercials, so we'll have to wait for the performance to see how they came out!

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

**A/N:**

What a good title for the chapter, if I do say so myself! Get the pun?


	12. Musical Knives

**Musical Knives **

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

"Excited, excited, I'm so EXCITED for today!" Ryuzaki sang in a tuneless voice the next morning. "It's wonderful to see all your bright, young faces!"

None of the students could honestly return this compliment, so they said nothing. They had had to get up extra early that morning in order to navigate their way to the theater that Ryuzaki was having them convene in. It made them all a little nervous to see the huge stage shrouded with a rich dark blue curtain, presumably to present the advertisements.

"Now, first things first; let's get one thing straight," said Ryuzaki, suddenly stern. "The next half hour or so is going to be a complete and utter waste of time. Are we clear on that?"

They looked around. "Yes...." They said cautiously.

"Well, actually, this whole day is pretty pointless," Ryuzaki admitted. "But I wish to emphasize that the next thirty minutes will be especially so."

"I'm just glad that this challenge has nothing to do with me," said Echizen.

"Yes, yes...enjoy it while you can..." Said Ryuzaki under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing!" she laughed jovially. "Is everyone here?"

"Kamio's group hasn't arrived," Sanada grumbled.

"Oh, yes, I think Shinji might have mentioned something about internal hemorrhaging to me on the phone last night," said Yukimura pleasantly. "I don't know if they'll make it at all."

"Well, they better because if they don't then I'm going to whip—" she cast her eyes about for a victim. "Yanagi!" She grabbed said boy by the arm and pulled him off to the side. "If Cauliflower loses then Yanagi gets whipped," she announced.

There was a collective gasp.

"And—if Radish loses?" Jackal whispered.

"Yanagi gets whipped," said Ryuzaki again.

Yanagi frowned slightly. "It may just be my imagination, but this kind of seems like a lose-lose situation for me."

"Those are my favorite," said Ryuzaki happily. "And I'm bored of waiting. Let's just start the presentations. Kamio can get a penalty when he arrives for being late."

"Grand," Yukimura muttered darkly, looking like he was planning a terrible future for Kamio.

"So, to decide the order in which you will be presenting…" said Ryuzaki, rubbing her hands together. "We're going to be playing a quick game to decide the order. The person who loses the game first has to present first, and so on."

"Can we EVER just have a NORMAL way of figuring these things out!?" everyone screamed.

"Well, _I_ think it's a good idea," she said crossly. "Plus that way I can waste time while we're waiting for Kamio to show up."

"Fine, what's the game?" Jirou asked.

She smiled strangely.

"Redheads form a line," she said. "We're going to have a nice, clean game of Musical Knives."

Dead silence. Then,

"What in _God's name_ is Musical Knives?"

"Basically the same thing as Musical Chairs," said Ryuzaki complacently. "Except…you know, instead of chairs, we use knives."

More silence.

"We have to _sit _on _knives_?" Sengoku asked finally.

"What? No, don't be stupid. It's like that game Spoons where there's a pile of objects in the middle of a circle and then when someone gets a card combination, they all have to grab one. So we're doing a similar thing. I play some music and you guys walk around; when the music stops you have to all grab a knife, and the person who doesn't get one is out. It tends to be…rather more interesting than Musical Chairs."

"You have got to be kidding." Said Marui flatly, taking a step back. "This is where I draw the line. I am _not _playing Musical Knives!"

There was a murmur of assent from the other boys present.

"Well, you don't really have a choice here, now do you?" Ryuzaki snapped, having anticipated resistance. "It's either this or Knife and Seek—"

"**NO!**" shouted the Seigaku regulars, who had played (on Ryuzaki's orders) Knife and Seek at a number of after school practices and knew its horrors firsthand.

"Sounds fine to me," said Fuji, smiling.

"Musical Knives it is!" shouted all the redheads, knowing that if Fuji approved of the other game, it had to be lethal.

"Good choice." Ryuzaki smile and then she snapped her fingers. Six knives materialized out of nowhere, along with a stereo.

"How did you do that?!" they all cried in amazement.

She waved her hand impatiently. "That's for a later challenge," was her reply. "Without Kamio here, we have seven redheads, so we'll start with six knives, and then remove one each round. Redheads, come up on stage!"

Grumbling, and more than a little apprehensively, they did so.

Ryuzaki did a quick head count before starting the game.

"Wait a minute, I counted eight of you! What's going on here?" she asked. Then she looked more carefully. "Fuji, go sit down! You can't play, not after what happened last time!"

"Aww…" Fuji pulled off the red wig he had jammed on his head and trouped back to join the rest of the boys.

"Everyone else ready?" she asked. "I'm going to start the music and you're going to walk around the knives; then when I stop the music, you have to grab a knife. It's actually a very wholesome game, because it teaches you fast reflexes and quick knife-grabbing techniques."

"Why would we need to know knife-grabbing techniques?" Gakuto asked sullenly.

"In the case that you were robbed or something, it would be good self defense," she said smoothly. "Now let's start. I'm in the mood for the Beatles," She walked over to the stereo and pressed 'play' and I Am the Walrus starting blasting out.

The boys looked at one another dubiously, and then began to slowly walk around the knives in a circle.

Ryuzaki frowned as she watched them. She wasn't pleased with the way they were playing. After a minute, she called, "Time out!" and pressed the 'pause' button.

When the music went off, the redheads all scrambled for a knife. It was a vicious and bloody battle for the last knife and several people got hurt. Ultimately, Eiji ended up knifeless and sporting a bleeding cut on his hand.

"Hah! Eiji's out!" the other wounded but victorious players cried.

"No, no, that wasn't a real stop," Ryuzaki shouted. "I was just pausing because I called time out! I have to tell you something!"

"Awwwwwwwww," they all groaned.

"Well, how were we supposed to know that it wasn't a _real_ stop?" Gakuto pouted.

"Maybe because I said Time Out!?" she cried.

"Oh, God, what _is_ it!?" Sanada shouted, so that they would all stop jabbering. Ryuzaki remembered why she had pressed pause in the first place.

"Well, I was just going to say that I don't want you all to circle the knives while the music is playing. That's completely stupid. I want you to be walking all around this stage, chattering amongst yourselves and stuff."

"_Why?_"

"Well, because obviously if this were a real robbery and you had to defend yourself, you wouldn't _really_ just be standing around a pile of knives, waiting to grab one!" she said. "You would be off doing something else. It's a test of reflexes!"

They looked at eachother. "What are we supposed to do?!" they asked.

"I don't know; use your imaginations!"

Collective sigh.

"Okay, I'm going to start the music again and the next time I turn it off is for real!"

"So all those injuries were for nothing…" said Eiji sadly, looking at his hand.

The music started again. For a moment the boys just stood around. Then Jirou said to Gakuto, "Wow-what-a-lovely-day-we're-having."

"Indeed." Said Gakuto. The two of them starting walking around aimlessly. The others followed suit, wandering randomly around the stage in pointless patterns and when Ryuzaki turned off the music, it was a mad scramble for the knives. Eiji ended up knifeless again because of his injury.

"Okay, Eiji's out for real this time," said Ryuzaki. "Get off the stage. And remove one of the knives."

They continued the vicious game for another twenty minutes. Sengoku got quite into it and some of the boys seemed to be actually enjoying themselves despite the blood that was flying. Finally, Kintarou emerged as the ultimate winner. He had the advantage because he was so small; he could pop up from under the other players and steal their knives with only minimal injuries.

The others were a little pissed off that they had somehow lost to a guy who was three and a half feet tall, but other than that, none of them were seriously injured, so it was good enough.

"Good work, boys," said Ryuzaki approvingly. "That was a good clean game. So here's the final score: the person who presents first is the person who got out first, et cetera, et cetera. The presentation order will be: Eiji first, then David, Sengoku, Gakuto, Marui, Jirou, and finally the amazing Kintarou!"

"Yay," they said unenthusiastically while people in the audience pretended to clap.

"When does Kamio go?" Tachibana asked.

Ryuzaki shrugged. "I don't know; whenever he turns up, I guess. That'll be part of his penalty."

"Fair enough."

"Now that I've sufficiently wasted your time, let's actually consider starting," said Ryuzaki happily. "I am so excited! Eiji is up first!"

"Yeah…go team!" said Eiji, but his voice was very sluggish and soft. He seemed to be bleeding quite a lot from his hand.

Oishi nervously supported Eiji as their group stepped onto the miniature stage that Ryuzaki had set up.

"Oh, one last thing!"

No one was even surprised at the interruption this time. It was just what Ryuzaki did.

"I still need to introduce our guest judge!" Ryuzaki said happily. "Since I noticed that you were all so dour at the last two challenges, I decided to make this one a little more fun by getting a guest judge a little closer to your age…"

"Ominous," they said, leaning forward to see who it was.

"May I present…" Said Ryuzaki grandly, throwing her hand back over her shoulder as a young man stepped through the curtain.

Most people stared blankly at the guy, but Echizen gasped dramatically. "_You!_" he cried.

"_You!_" the guy on the stage shouted back.

"Me!" shouted Momoshiro since he felt like he hadn't been looked at or talked about for a very long time. Which was indeed true.

The guy on the stage began to laugh and Echizen asked in horror, "what are you doing here?"

"As I was saying," interrupted Ryuzaki. "May I introduce our guest judge…Sasabe, the Golden Retriever!"

"No, that's my dad," said the boy in an annoyed voice. "I'm just Sasabe."

Everyone from Seigaku gasped and all the others just looked confused since they had nothing to do with him.

"Oh," said Ryuzaki. "Right, guess I got the wrong guy. Well, whatever."

"Great. Not wanted again." said Sasabe in a depressed voice. Then he brightened. "Well, at least now I can screw over Echizen, and totally on my terms!"

"You can't do this!" Echizen begged Ryuzaki. "You _cannot_ let this guy be a judge! He hates me! He's going to make Radish lose on purpose, just to spite me!"

Ryuzaki thought about this for a moment. "...sucks for you?" she finally volunteered. "Maybe this will teach you not to piss all over everyone else's screen time!"

Sasabe was besides himself with glee. "You know that expression, what goes around comes around?" he asked.

"Yeah…"

"Well, this has nothing to do with that. I don't know why I brought it up. But the point is, now I can take avenge the way you treated me and my dad!"

"Sounds jolly good to me," said Yukimura with his permanent smile in place.

"Yeah, you _would_," said everyone.

Yukimura frowned. "That didn't even make sense."

"We're starting the presentations for real now!" declared Ryuzaki. "We're going to be judging the commercials by how badly we want to leap up and buy the products after seeing them. Kikumaru, start!"

All the other students took seats in fold out chairs and Ryuzaki and Sasabe sat at a judging table.

"We made a film..." Eiji garbled, withdrawing a small cassette from his pocket.

"Ooh, unique! I thought everyone would go live-action!" said Ryuzaki, while the other groups cursed.

"Um, we'll just...play it now." said Oishi awkwardly.

He inserted the cassette into the small, roller wheel television that was on the stage, and pressed play. Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

Sorry for taking so long to update...I'm searching my mind for an excuse, but I can't really remember one. I don't know what I've been doing the last few days...

Yay for what is possibly the most pointless waste of time chapter so far!


	13. The Part Where He's Thrashing In Agony

**Chapter 13: The Part Where He's Thrashing In Agony**

**A/N:** It might help you to refresh your memory by scanning the previous few chapters before reading this

* * *

**XxXxX**

* * *

"…"

"The end," Oishi announced, suspecting that no one would recognize it otherwise.

"…"

"Ehhh……" Ryuzaki finally volunteered. "That was your commercial?"

"Pretty much." Inui replied.

"Well, what do we think, people?" Ryuzaki turned to the audience. "How did you like it?"

"Ehhh." Everyone replied.

"Yes, that's the only way to sum it up, isn't it?" Ryuzaki agreed, turning back to the boys at hand. "I would be completely lying if I said that I liked it, but on the other hand, I can't quite put my finger on what made it so mediocre…"

"Aoi's abominable acting?" Niou suggested.

"Ah, yes; precisely!" said Ryuzaki, snapping her fingers. "And kudos for the alliteration!"

Niou waved a victory flag.

"That leaves the problem of what to award you, I suppose," Ryuzaki mused. "Personally, I'd give that a four out of ten, but we have to consult the guest judge as well. What do you think, Sasabe?"

"I'd give it a three plus," he said, holding up a sign with a 3+ on it from the judging table.

"Awwwww!" Oishi and Aoi stamped their feet. Inui was impassive as usual. Eiji had passed out from blood loss more than five minutes ago and thus gave no discernible reaction.

"No fair!" shouted Oishi. "It's not our fault if Aoi is the worst actor since Hannah Montana! We worked really hard on this commercial; give us a break!"

"Yeah!" Aoi added. Then he realized what Oishi had just said. "Hey, wait a min—"

"Besides, Sasabe doesn't even have the right to judge!" Momoshiro broke in. "He has a grudge against Echizen so he's just going to try to make Radish lose!"

"And he's not even a legitimate character in the series!" Kaidoh added. "Get him out of here!"

"Hey!" Sasabe looked personally offended by this statement. "Listen, Pal, I'm only in the series for three freaking episodes and I get my ass kicked in all three! Leave me alone!"

Everyone opened their mouths to respond, but then realized that this was indeed a very good point, and just shut their mouths again without saying anything.

"Enough!" Ryuzaki bellowed, even though this was unnecessary since they had all fallen silent. "I chose the guest judge and we're going to respect him! Whatever he says goes: so if Team One only deserves three points, then that's how it's going to be! Now everyone from the first group get off the stage so that we can continue with the presentations!"

Sadly, Aoi began to roll the television set off the stage while Inui and Oishi picked up the unconscious Eiji and followed suit. The three began to clean up the stage.

Off in the corner of the audience, David, who was up next, was still arguing about his script with Saeki and Bane.

" '_Oh, this suitcase feels so good in my hand'_… Do you seriously expect me to say that in front of everybody?" David hissed under his breath frantically. "I knew I shouldn't have left this to you. Now I'm the one who's stuck presenting this!"

"Well, we haven't got anything better," said Saeki shrugging.

"Easy for you to say, safely seated in the audience!"

"It's all we've got!"

"_Maybe_ because my writing staff was on the beach when they were supposed to be doing my script!!" David bellowed, earning him strange looks from the people around him.

"Come on, Man," said Bane, waving his hand. "You're worrying too much. Just go out there and do it. They'll love it!"

"You are out of your fucking mind if you think that I'm going to—"

"Up next, David's advertisement of a suitcase!" announced Ryuzaki, as group one finally finished cleaning up and left the stage. "David, get up here and show us what you've prepared!"

A spotlight fell on David in the audience, illuminating him with Bane's collar in his fist. David immediately let go and shakily stood up, picking up the suitcase at his feet.

"I'll—be right up!" he called weakly.

David managed to squeeze in one more death glare to his two teammates before awkwardly making his way up to the stage, followed by the spotlight. Once on the platform, he stood awkwardly, clutching the suitcase in his sweaty hand. There was dead silence in the audience.

David stared at the crowd for about thirty seconds before coughing tentatively.

"…Okay, so…hi, everyone," he said. "I'll now advertise this Escalade suitcase."

They stared at him. Ryuzaki marked off a point for stating the obvious.

Bane mouthed, "good luck" and Saeki gave him a thumbs-up.

David swallowed. Then he started walking in place, holding the suitcase. He stopped walking and wiped non-existent sweat from his brow. "Whew! Airports can be tiring! Good thing I brought my Escalade suitcase!" he said.

Everyone stared.

David started walking again. "Ah, it feels so _good_ in my hand," he said. "I could….drag it around the airport all day!"

Everyone exchanged confused looks.

David saw that no one was responding. He started to feel a little hot.

"What…nice wheels this thing has!" he said. "It would be great if my plane were delayed so that I could…spend more time with this suitcase!"

David's speech got increasingly awkward.

"What a wonderful, cushion-y, ultimate handle! You'd......you'd have to be nuts to not want......to drag this thing......around an airport……" he trailed off feebly, while Saeki and Bane were doubled over in silent laughter.

Ryuzaki cocked an eyebrow. "Is it just me, or are you guys somehow getting the impression that David is making this all up on the spot?" she asked.

"You know, I was just thinking that as well!" exclaimed Yukimura.

"Bet he didn't rehearse at all," said Sanada.

"That's—not true!" David exclaimed. "I did _too _rehearse! And it went well! And by the way, this isn't part of the advertisement, so I shouldn't even be saying this right now!"

"Alright, then; finish your commercial!" barked Ryuzaki.

David gulped. "......this handle.....," he began.

"Enough about the handle!" everyone shouted.

"It…feels so gooood in my hand!" David cried. "Not too heavy; feathery and light, just the way I like it! I could just drag this magnificent object around all day long and then just…get up and do it _again_!"

"ECSTACY!" Shiraishi shouted.

Everyone stared. Finally Ryuzaki spoke.

"You are disqualified for making a suitcase commercial into a sexual allegory," she said to David.

"What?!" exclaimed David. "There were absolutely no sexual undertones in that commercial! There was nothing sexual about it at all!"

At this point, Saeki and Bane lost control, collapsing into laughter on the floor.

"You…you planned this!" David said to the two boys, understanding at last, "You bastards, you set me up!"

"I didn't think you'd actually use that script!" Saeki managed to say through his laughter. "It was so obviously a......oh, God!"

"I hate you!" shouted David.

"Saeki, I love you," said Fuji sincerely.

"I love you too, Syuu-chan," he replied.

"Since these people suck at being teammates, this commercial's grade is going to be low," said Ryuzaki. "You can show it, Sasabe."

Sasabe raised a five.

"Hey, that's not so bad." said David, calming down.

"Oh! Sorry, I forgot!" said Sasabe, putting down the sign, making a small change, and then lifting it again. "It's actually supposed to be a _point_ 5."

"Awww," said David. "I hate points!"

"Then maybe you should get none!" joked Ryuzaki.

David gasped dramatically. "To be stabbed by my own sword!" he cried. "Insulted by a pun…it's too much pain!" he staggered off the stage and ran out of the room.

"And good riddance!" shouted Sasabe after him.

"I officially hate my team," said Tezuka.

"Shouldn't Saeki and Bane be punished?" Sengoku asked uncertainly.

"Nah," said Tezuka. "After all, David really _should_ have realized that the script they wrote for him was just a compilation of loosely hidden sex jokes."

"Man, this is brutal," said Sengoku. "You can't even trust your own teammates!"

"Life," everyone else said.

"Okay, up next is Sengoku!" announced Ryuzaki. "The good news is that it's bound to be a good show!"

"How can you be sure?" asked Sengoku suspiciously, as he and his teammates Mizuki, Atsushi and Ryou mounted the stairs to get on stage.

"Well, whatever you do is pretty much guaranteed to be better than David's," she explained. "And if it's worse…well, then it would have to be so _ridiculously_ bad that it would be hilarious! So basically, your presentation ought to be entertaining either way."

"I'm not sure if that's comforting or not…" said Sengoku, thinking this over.

"Sengoku's group is advertising a health insurance plan, in case the rest of you forgot." Ryuzaki said. She turned back to Sengoku. "Start!"

"In a sec." Sengoku went over to the side stage and pulled down the curtains. "We need a few minutes to get changed and stuff. Please stand by."

"Ooh, they have costumes!" Ryuzaki said excitedly, while everyone else looked sour. "I'm kind of intrigued now!"

The curtains went down and there was silence for a few minutes as the audience waited for the group to get ready.

Behind the curtain, Sengoku finished tying the band of his black ninja outfit and patted Mizuki on the back. "Just do your best," he reminded him in a low voice. "You have the most important part out of any of us. Just…do well and Fuji will be impressed."

"I know," Mizuki gulped. "How does my hair look?"

"Fantastic," said Sengoku without even looking at it. "I'm going off stage now. You're up!"

Mizuki nodded.

Atsushi, Ryou and Sengoku all scooted over to the sidelines of the stage. Sengoku pulled up the curtains.

There was a scattered, unenthusiastic applause as the curtain rose to reveal Mizuki alone on the stage. For a moment there was a silence as awkward as the beginning of David's presentation, but then Mizuki braced himself and began.

Mizuki began to walk around the stage. He paced around for about thirty seconds, looking from side to side, as if taking in some beautiful scenery.

"Wow, what a nice day!" he said, stopping walking for a moment and looking at the audience. "What a wonderful, lovely day it is today! I bet nothing terrible or scarring could happen on a day like this!" he said.

Out of nowhere, Sengoku leaped from the shadows in his ninja outfit. He sneaked up on Mizuki, and proceeded to smash a baseball bat into the side of Mizuki's head.

There was a long, dramatic gasp from the audience as Mizuki's eyes went glazed and he collapsed on the stage. There was a long pause in which Mizuki didn't move.

"Oh my God. Did he _kill_ him?" Ryuzaki asked in a carrying whisper.

Sengoku slid off the stage. Everyone stared at Mizuki for a few more moments and then all of a sudden, Mizuki's head snapped up. He grinned broadly and stood up.

"Wow!" Mizuki said. "You never know what's coming! I had totally no idea that some random ninja would attack me! But I'm always prepared! And you know why?"

Everyone in the audience shook his head dumbly. They were totally engrossed.

"It's because I have health insurance!" Mizuki cried, throwing his arms out and stumbling a bit as he did so (since after all, that hit to the head had been pretty hard).

Ryou walked on the stage, dressed as a doctor.

"What happened to you, son?" he asked, adjusting the stethoscope around his neck.

"Gee, Doc, some guy just hit me in the head with a baseball bat!" said Mizuki brightly.

"Now, how could anyone do something like that to a swell guy like you?!" Ryou asked in mock surprise.

"Beats me," Mizuki shrugged.

"Maybe…like……._this_!" Ryou shouted. He suddenly whipped off his stethoscope and began strangling Mizuki with it. Mizuki turned blue and began gurgling.

Everyone watched in a mixture of awe and terror as Ryou semi-strangled Mizuki. But then Ryou released him. Mizuki collapsed to the floor. He lay there for a moment before sitting up again.

"I'm…a real trooper and I get into trouble a lot!" Mizuki said with a controlled effort. "That's why I buy health insurance. It provides me with the safety and coverage everyday of my life. And when you've got as many enemies as I do, that's something you need to know!"

Out came Atsushi.

"Hey, Mizuki, Old Pal," he said. "Want to check out my rubbing alcohol collection? Huh? How about it, Old Pal?"

"Sure thing!" said Mizuki, getting to his feet and walking over.

Atsushi whipped out a small cloth daubed in rubbing alcohol and proceeded to viciously rub it into Mizuki's eyes. Mizuki screamed in agony.

Everyone in the audience broke into excited titters. No one was sure whether they loved this commercial or if it was scarring them for life.

Atsushi, too, exited the stage, leaving Mizuki writhed on the floor for a few more moments before stilling himself and slowly standing up.

"I'm okay—" he began.

At that moment, Sengoku, Atsushi, and Ryou all came back onto the stage dressed in gangster outfits. In perfect sync, they all pulled out rubber ducks and began beating Mizuki over the head with them. Then they put on scuba diving flippers and kicked him. Mizuki dropped into a fetal position on the floor until they finished and left.

"It's.....not.....easy......being me....." Mizuki slurred, managing with a heroice effort to get to his feet again and pressing a hand over the bleeding wound in his head. "So.....when I've had a rough day...... there's.....nothing I like better than.....calling up my......health insurance......and.....and......"

He fainted.

"Wow, what good acting!" everyone cried, breaking into applause.

After Mizuki seriously didn't get up again, Sengoku called an ambulance.

Mizuki was removed from the stage in a stretcher. The rest of the team returned to the stage and bowed gracefully.

Ryuzaki looked perplexed.

"I'm honestly not sure whether I loved that commercial or found it deeply disturbing," she said. "On one hand, violence is a terrible thing. But on the other hand......it's Mizuki."

She frowned and shook her head.

"What do you guys think?" she asked the audience.

"I liked the part where he was thrashing in agony!" cried Yukimura enthusiastically.

"I liked it when he left on a stretcher!" Fuji added joyfully.

"Yeah!" another round of applause followed.

"Well, it sounds like everyone enjoyed it," said Ryuzaki confusedly, still rubbing her chin. "That must count for something. What do you think, Sasabe?"

The teenage boy thought for a moment before holding up a nine.

"I can live with that," decided Ryuzaki.

"You're kidding. No one cares that Mizuki was almost killed?" Sanada asked, but no one heard him, for Radish had broken into fresh peals of cheering and clapping. Sengoku and his teammates returned to their seats as glowing heroes.

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**XxXxX**

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I'm....back? Hope you enjoyed! :D


	14. I Thought It Was May

**Chapter 14: Why Are We Talking About Christmas Anyway? (I thought it was May)**

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**XxX**

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"Next up, we have the adorable Choutarou-Shishido pair!" Ryuzaki announced happily, throwing her hand over her shoulder enthusiastically while the spotlight spun around to find the third group.

"Hey, it's _my_ lousy group!" Gakuto griped, climbing onto stage with the help of a stepping stool. "Why don't _I_ get an intro?"

"Oh, sorry, Gakuto, I always seem to forget about you because you're so androgynous."

"I'm not androgynous!" Gakuto blushed. "_You're_ androgynous! An androgynous…androg!"

"Personally, I find Tezuka androgynous," Shishido randomly volunteered.

"None of you knows what 'androgynous' means, do you?" Yanagi said.

Shishido and Gakuto drooped with shame, shaking their heads, but Ryuzaki snapped, "Oh, and I suppose you do, Mister Genius?"

"Indeed, I do," he said composedly. "I'm actually giving a seminar later this week. It's called, _Androgynous and Its Applications 123_."

"It's true. I'm attending," said Inui.

"Will someone _please _define androgynous!?" Momoshiro shouted, frustrated at being cut out of the conversation.

"Don't worry about it. No one knows what's going on right now," Ryuzaki said. "I don't even know why I brought this up. What an utter waste of ten lines. Just begin your advertisement."

The group assembled on the stage and Ryuzaki reminded everyone that these were the people advertising the zoo. Unlike the group before them, they made no move to rearrange the chairs or other furniture at their disposal, nor to put on any costumes. All that happened was that Shishido wheeled the t.v. set towards the front of the stage.

"Oh great. Another filmed commercial?" Ryuzaki asked dully, once everyone had fallen silent.

"Not exactly," said Gakuto, wagging his finger. "We'll begin now."

The lights went off.

Gakuto cleared his throat and entered a tape into the VCR. "This is our zoo," he announced, as images of the park and the animals flashed across the scene, recorded to the music of Beethoven. "Observe the animals. Observe the scenery. Observe the design. Observe our food stands at which we sell ridiculously overpriced food that you have no choice but to buy since after walking around in the park all day, you are starving and there's no other choice." Gakuto paused to silently hate on all amusement park and zoo owners who did that.

"But most of all…" continued Gakuto. "…observe the _people_."

There was silence as everyone scrutinized the screen, wondering if they were seeing correctly. Finally, Kintarou voiced what they were all thinking, but felt too stupid to say,

"But there _are _no people!"

"Exactly!" Choutarou's voice cut like a whip through the theater. The lights flipped back on, and Shishido abruptly turned the movie off.

"There are no people in our park!" Choutarou announced loudly. "And do you want to know why?"

"Why?" they all asked, confused.

"Because our park SUCKS!" Gakuto shouted.

Everyone started in shock. What an intriguing statement this was!

"What an intriguing statement that was!" Ryuzaki cried, lifting one hand to her cheek dramatically. "Do explain!"

"Nothing to explain, Sensei!" Gakuto called. "I have taken time off work to come here today and tell you people, DON'T come to our park!"

They gasped.

"That's right, stay away!" Gakuto went on breathlessly, gaining momentum as he kept talking. "This park is completely pathetic in all ways and there is no doubt in my mind that you won't like it!"

"In fact, this park is so unbelievably lame, we should be paying _you_ to come!" Shishido added. "But you _still _won't want to!"

"Oh, my God," said Ryuzaki.

"What is it?" the audience asked.

"I don't know…..but I suddenly have the most terrible urge to leap up and go to their park right this instant! I don't know why!"

"Hey, me too!" cried Niou.

"They're geniuses! I've _got _to go to this park!" Saeki was on the edge of his seat.

"It's a grand park, for _the owners_!" The group on stage chorused. "And the best part is, _you guys _can't come!"

"I'VE GOT TO GO!" everyone in the audience was worked into a frenzy at this point. There was thrashing and punching as everyone jumped up and pulled out their wallets. "How much!? HOW MUCH?" they all cried, mouths watering. Well, everyone except Echizen. He had spent the last five minutes looking up 'androgynous' and had consequently missed everything that happened. He was thoroughly confused to find everyone on their feet. "What's going on?" he asked.

Naturally, he was ignored.

"I can't believe it actually worked!" Shishido muttered in awe to Gakuto. "I have to admit, I thought your idea was completely stupid."

"Reverse psychology never fails," Choutarou said happily.

"You guys pass, okay?!" Ryuzaki was calling. "You get a ten! No, an eleven! Now can we have tickets?"

Gakuto, Choutarou, and Shishido had to remind everyone that this park didn't actually exist; it had just been invented for the advertisement, to which everyone was sorely disappointed, especially Ryuzaki, who had invented the damn thing. But a promise was a promise, so they got eleven points and sat back down.

"I don't know how anyone's going to follow that one up," Ryuzaki commented, dabbing at her eyes. "I don't think we're ever going to get over that particular let down. But, Marui, you've got no choice but to try."

"Oh, don't worry," Marui said suavely, getting on stage. "I think you won't be disappointed."

"Isn't Marui advertising the bra?" the audience whispered among itself, tittering, and excited.

"Where the hell is your team?" Ryuzaki asked, confused, realizing Marui was alone.

"If you mean my _ex-best friends_, they're over there," Marui said derisively, pointing out Yagyuu, Niou, and Jackal who were sitting with fists jammed in their mouths, shaking with silent laughter.

"Gosh, I love how supportive our team members are of one another," Yukimura commented. "It's great to know that in this huge crowd, your best friend is somewhere, laughing at you."

"But I don't need them anymore!" Marui declared, turning away dramatically. "I succeeded without their lousy help! And I'm stronger for it!"

"Wait, is this part of the commercial?" Sasabe asked confusedly.

"No!"

"Then snap to it!"

"Fine." Marui sighed. "Just for the record, I would like to add that I'm going brunette after today. But let's begin!"

Everyone in the audience grinned, prepared for an epic failure.

The lights when dark, just as they had in the previous commercial, and a dance song with a strong, pulsing beat came on. After about ten seconds of darkness, the lights faded on and a disco ball lowered.

At first the stage was empty. Then came the sound of footsteps.

Out pranced Atobe's three imported models, clad in lingerie and carelessly thrown scarves.

Every male jaw in the theatre hit the floor with a resounding _thud_.

The girls pranced about, posing in the corners and spinning around occasionally. They made three circular rounds about the stage before stalking off with flirty waves to the audience.

The music went off.

The commercial had lasted less than fifteen seconds, but no one seemed to care. Drool was dripping from the mouth from every boy: a fine little pond had formed in front of the stage.

"So whadya think?" Marui asked smugly. "Still lame? Still lame? Still, 'Marui doesn't know any girls'?"

"Where---where did you get _t__hose_!?" Niou asked horsely.

"Why weren't they there when—when we were there?!" Yagyuu added faintly.

"No faith at all, old friends," Marui shook his head. "I have my ways; Marui is smart; Marui is charming. Marui finds ways."

**--Flashback--**

_(In Atobe's Limo) _

_Marui: Would you women like to be in my lingerie commercial?_

_Women: Fine_

**--End Flashback--**

Marui smiled and turned to Ryuzaki, who had remained silent up until now.

"What do you say?"

Ryuzaki didn't seem to know what to do with her face. She cleared her throat. "Sasabe?"

Silence.

"Sasabe?" She turned around. He was passed out under the judging table with a stream of blood flowing from his nose.

Ryuzaki shrugged. "3."

"_WHAT?!"_ It was not just Marui that spoke, but the whole audience. "That was the best commercial I ever saw!" Yukimura stood up and rolled up his sleeves, looking ready to fight.

"What the hell did you expect? I'm a girl!" Ryuzaki shouted. "Your little exhibition didn't excite me!"

"Oh, God damn, she's a _woman_!" Marui slapped his forehead, but spoke in a scathing tone. "I forgot! Again!"

A hush fell over the theater.

Marui seemed to think that it was because they were all awed by his wit (even though it was actually because they heard something outside) and so he went on, because he figured he was never going to get any more screen time again ANYWAY, at least not as nice and solo as this.

"Yeah, you're such an old hag that I FORGOT you're still asking Santa for the second x chromosome!"

"Marui, shut up; you've had 'moustache' on your Christmas list for the past five years," Jackal reminded him. "It ain't happening."

"Why are we talking about Christmas anyway?" Saeki asked confusedly. "I thought it was May. I mean, tennis season just ended, right?"

"Yeah, come to think of it, when in the hell are we?" Sengoku asked. "I thought it was spring, but I'm suddenly feeling so jolly. I might burst into carol at any minute."

"Will you all shut up!? This is MY screen time!" Marui whined. "And I'm not going to let anyone forget it; even if my commercial failed!"

"Oh, yeah?" Niou looked amused. "Whatcha going to do?"

In a swift, unplanned motion, Marui took off his pants.

There was dead silence in the room.

"Okay, Marui, now you officially fail, because of an overload of people in underwear in your commercial," Ryuzaki said.

"Well, what do I do when my object is a bra!?" Marui objected.

Before anyone could reply, everyone was distracted by the sudden sound of echoing wails, followed by a tremendous crashing noise. Everyone's heads snapped to the back of the theater.

The door had just burst open, revealing the harassed-looking pair of Hiyoshi and Shinji, dragging Kirihara and Kamio, respectively, by their ankles. Kamio and Kirihara were the ones screaming. Although it was hard to understand their complaint because their voices were echoing so much, it seemed that both of them were repeatedly and passionately bellowing, "_one more level; one more level!" _over and over again.

"Whew!" Shinji dropped Kamio and wiped his forehead. "Sorry we're late; what did we miss?"

Everyone stared, open-mouthed.

"What?" Shinji asked, like he couldn't even see the two boys at his feet. "Have I got something on my face?"

"What did you—_do_ to them?"

"What did _we_ do to them? Why don't you ask what _they_ did to _us_?!" Hiyoshi snapped. "They haven't gotten off the t.v. for three days! They refused to come to the challenge this morning because they wanted to finish the game! We had to _literally_ drag them here!"

While Hiyoshi said all this, Kamio and Kirihara tried to crawl towards the exit, but Shinji caught them and dragged them back, this time tying their whining bodies to a nearby chair.

"Anyway, we're here now," said Hiyoshi. "So let's continue. Who's up next? And why the hell is Marui on stage in his underwear?"

"You're next," said Ryuzaki, not bothering to answer the other question. "That's part of your punishment for lateness."

Hiyoshi and Shinji looked doubtfully at their teammates.

"Okay, fine," said Shinji finally. "But why's the floor covered in saliva? Could someone mop it up before we go on? I'm afraid I'll slip and fall."

"Marui, do it," said Ryuzaki, without even looking at the boy on stage.

"GOD DAMN IT!" Marui screamed, tearing his hair out in frustration, half at being asked to clean up, and half at being ignored for the last minute since Shinji entered, even though HE was the one on STAGE in his UNDERWEAR. "What's a guy got to do to get some attention in this series!?"

"Have a twist serve, vanishing counter, or secret tornado that makes tennis balls gravitate toward you," the audience recited.

"Those don't even exist!" Marui bellowed. "They're moves that no human could _actually_ do that the series writers invented to make it seem like tennis is actually interesting—"

No one was listening to Marui any more. Ryuzaki handed him a broom to clean up.

"Kamio's group, up next," Ryuzaki announced. "And this better be good, although I already know it won't be. We should prepare to be bored out of our minds."

"I'll order the takeout," Atsushi whipped out his cell phone. "Who wants curry?"

* * *

XxX

* * *

A/N:

Whew! It's a bit...hastily written, but I hope it was okay. Actually, you better like it: I stayed up half the night writing this so that I could deliver a Christmas present to you guys. Thus, the random Christmassy allusions.

Happy Holidays, Everyone! :D


	15. A Surprising Turn of Events

Chapter 15: A Surprising Turn of Events

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**XxX**

* * *

"Let's try to keep this civilized, yes?" Ryuzaki said, once the saliva had been mopped up and everyone was seated happily with a warm bowl of curry. "Now, Ibu, where is your commercial?"

"Well…it's…" Shinji had spent the better part of five minutes trying to figure out the most sophisticated way of saying, "we don't have one".

"It's not part of our physical possessions at this juncture," Shinji finally said.

Ryuzaki raised an eyebrow. "We're not using any more big words," she said angrily. "Remember what happened last time."

"We don't have a commercial," said Hiyoshi flatly.

Everyone stared at them.

"Now that's f—ed up," Shiraishi said bluntly. The funny thing was, there actually was a beeping noise in his speech. He frowned confusedly. "Hey, what the h—?" he tried to say, but his words were censored. He looked bewilderedly around him at his teammates. "Doesn't anyone find this f—ig weird?!"

"It's interesting, but unfortunately it'll have to wait until after this challenge; we can't afford more tangents at this point," Ryuzaki said.

"More to the point," said Sasabe, who had finally revived. "Why didn't you do it?"

"Well…it's not really our fault, see?" Hiyoshi said uncomfortably, shifting his weight. "We couldn't get our group members off the game for long enough to make the ad."

"Then why didn't you do it yourselves?"

"We don't know anything about the game," Shinji explained. "That's why Kamio and Kirihara were playing it: to figure out its features. Then they got addicted."

"We have a tape of them playing non-stop for three days if you want to see," Hiyoshi added, pulling a tape out of his pocket. "That's sort of like an ad if you think about it. I mean, it proves that the game is cool and addicting."

"As good of a point as that is, I'm afraid I can't excuse your lack of preparedness, especially when all the other teams tried so hard," Ryuzaki said. "You fail."

Everyone started. Ryuzaki had never said anything so fair in all her life!

"And anyway, Shinji has already played the 'didn't do the assignment, but still gets full credit' card, so I can't let him off the hook again. It would seem like favoritism." Ryuzaki added.

Shinji bowed his head. He had been counting on that card.

"So…that's it, then?" Hiysohi clarified.

"Get off the stage, already!" Sengoku called.

Hiyoshi and Shinji trooped off the stage with their heads bowed and went back to their two teammates who had been bound and gagged.

"Well, _that_ was anticlimactic," said Ryuzaki moodily. "I was kind of excited about that one, too. I guess this means we're skipping to Jirou. Then there's only one more after that!" she sounded sad, though the words were heaven on everyone else's ears.

"Someone wake up Jirou," Sanada ordered.

"You're kidding. He actually fell asleep?" Ryuzaki asked in disbelief. "That is so, _so _cliché."

Jirou was prodded awake with a large stick held by Touji.

"Is it morning?" Jirou looked around blearily.

"Can we skip the part where we pretend that you just woke up and it's all cute and stuff?" everyone asked irately.

"_Fine_," Jirou said irritably, getting up. "Just trying to boost our ratings, but whatever."

Jirou climbed on stage. "I'm advertising cologne," he said. "Let's see if I can pull this off in under thirty seconds."

The curtains went down and Jirou changed into the clothes that Atobe had bought him. Then he got into the Lambourghini with the models and drove onto stage, demolishing half of the backstage props as his did so. The curtains came up.

Jirou got dramatically out of the car, followed by the women.

"How did you think that I got all these cool things?" Jirou asked the audience, his voice magically magnified into a ringing, sonorous tenor. "It's from this—"

"Hold up!" Ryuzaki interrupted the commercial. "Those are the same women that were in Marui's commercial!"

Jirou stared blankly at Ryuzaki. "…what's your point?"

"No REPEATS!" Ryuzaki shouted. "I said no two groups can have the same helpers!"

"You said no two groups can have the same helpers from their _team_," Yukimura pointed out, partly because it was in his interest that Jirou won and partly because he thought the models were hot. "You didn't say anything about _outside_ help!"

"Well, that's because I thought it was so obvious that I didn't need to say it," Ryuzaki said.

"That's ridiculous! You can't implement rules at the moment of the presentation!"

The door at the back of the theater flew open. Again. Everyone turned around to see two police enter.

"We got a call saying that underage driving was going on in here," one of them said importantly. "Which one of you is Jirou?"

"He's the one on the stage in front of the car," Ichiuma said helpfully, pointing. "With the red hair."

"I'm afraid you're under arrest, Son," said the policemen, walking up onto the stage and snapping handcuffs over Jirou's Emporio-Armani-clad wrists. "This kind of behavior is unacceptable."

"It was part of a skit!" Jirou cried.

"Be that as it may, it's against the federal law for persons under the age of sixteen years to drive without a license," they replied. "You'll have to answer to the judge."

"Is this _seriously_ happening?" Jirou asked, bewildered, looking around for support from his friends. No one said a word. Everyone just watched in shock as Jirou was forcibly dragged off the stage by the police.

"Who would've thought?" Oshitari mused aloud. "Poor Jirou. I guess it just doesn't pay to try to be too clever."

"Weren't _you_ in his group?!" everyone shouted.

Oshitari smiled.

"Well...I guess that's that then," Ryuzaki said uncertainly. "One boy addicted, one boy arrested...only Kintarou's left now! Ladies on the stage, you may leave."

The models, who had been standing there, looking confused for the last five minutes, left the stage.

Kintarou's team had a quick prayer session backstage that they wouldn't makes complete asses out of themselves (which was ironic, since two of them were clad in penguine costumes) and then did a team power hug, followed by a fistpump and a party favor assortment of other interesting means of wasting thirty seconds.

"We're the last group. Let's make this the best!" Kintarou said enthusiastically.

"Remember," said Shiraishi, "we have a lot of material to get through with this commercial; it's a lot more complex that the other groups'. So remember: FIRST we make the relative jokes, THEN we change modes and start teasing Chitose about being fat."

"How do we know when to change modes?" Ishida asked.

"I'll signal to you from off-stage," said Shiraishi.

Ishida shrugged. "Fair enough."

"At least there's no way we're going to lose in creativity," Kintarou said proudly, adjusting his flippers. "Let's go, team! _Go, Evil Penguin!_"

Oshitari flipped onto the dark stage in a blaze of green light.

"_Go, Common Man!_" Ishida rolled out in yellow light.

"_Go, Hero!_" Shiraishi's cartwheeled out in a burst of red.

"_Go, Fat ass!_"

"Hey!" Chitose complained, forgetting to properly bask in his blue light and stomping onto stage.

"_And ME!_" Kintarou flipped out onto stage in a pink splash.

There was a frozen pause as everyone behind the curtains heard these words and saw the lights shining from behind the curtain, but could not see anything. They looked around confusedly.

The curtain silently rose, revealing a beautifully constructed set of an arctic scene. Ishida and Chitose sat huddled inside an igloo around a small fire, while a bitter winters storm raged outside. There was real snow and everything. No kidding. They were _that_ hardcore.

"Gosh, Chitose," Ishida opened the first lines of the play, blowing into his mittened hands. "It's cold as hell out here. I wish you were more like your pal Tachibana. Then you could just kick this storm's ass and call it a job well done."

Chitose shook his head. "No, no, no. See, if it was me, I would first rally up all the fires in the world, and then convince them to rebel against the snow storms and THEN lead a revolution, ultimately stopping all snow storms forevermore!"

Tachibana laughed merrily at this joke, and the other members of Fudomine also chuckled warmly, because they were open enough to laugh at their own stupid histories, but no one else got it, and sat around looking confused.

"Yeah," continued Chitose, somewhat encouraged, "but in any case, you, ISHIDA, should have covered your HEAD if you wanted to keep warm!"

There was another smattering of good humored laughter from Fudomine.

"Oh, Ishida…" Fudomine Ishida sighed, chuckling and wiping a tear from his eye.

"Well, at least we know better than to ask OSHITARI for help," Ishida and Chitose said together. "At first we thought it was a good idea, because he might have an idea on how to combat the cold, but then we remembered that _he's_ not the TENSAI!"

Oshitari and the rest of Hyoutei had a good laugh.

Ryuzaki frowned. "I'm not sure whether to award this humor or deduct for it," she said. "It seems funny, but on the other hand, I'm annoyed that I don't get it. It's really only funny for the people it applies to."

The people onstage had exhausted their relative jokes though, and were now sitting in awkward silence. Shiraishi was frantically waving his hands at them from the wings of the stage, signaling that it was time to switch gears.

"Oh!—yeah," Ishida finally noticed Shiraishi after a full twenty second silence had passed on stage. "I mean—Chitose!" his tone completely changed from one of joking to a cold, nasty tone. "I forgot to mention: I don't want to be your friend anymore!" He spat at Chitose's feet.

"Why do you say that?" Chitose asked innocently, as the audience started to get intrigued by this shocking turn of events.

"Because you're FAT," Ishida said.

"Gasp!" narrated Momoshiro, his eyes growing wide, while the audience began to talk amongst themselves at this very-shocking-indeed turn of events.

"Yes, you're fat," said Ishida. "And thus, you are a loser. I haven't got time for losers. Try hanging out with me again when you've slimmed down, you Fatty!"

Chitose gapsed dramatically and started to cry. "Aw, I'm so fat!" he sobbed. "AND I don't have any good yogurt!"

"_Why would you do that!?_" Yanagisawa from the audience, who was taking the whole thing seriously. He jumped out of his seat and started to wail, pumping his hands in the air. "Why would you treat a poor, tortured soul like that, you horrible bully!? WHY?!"

"Yana-kun, they're just acting," Yuuta assured, pulling him back down into his seat.

At that moment, the attention was drawn back to the stage by the arrival of a new character. Kintarou waddled out in his costume, awkwardly holding the yogurt cup in one fin.

Ryuzaki almost died of KAWAII!!!1111 overdose as apparently so many Japanese females are unable to resist. Everyone else just exchanged skeptical looks.

"Why is Kintarou dressed like that?" Katsuo asked Kachiro in an attempt to look manly. (Haha, there are a lot of K names in that sentence)

"I don't know, but he looks like an idiot!" Kachiro replied.

"He sure does!"

They laughed, but Kintarou still plowed over to his team members in his costume.

"Hey guys," Kintarou said. "Tired of looking fat and always eating gross yogurt?"

Chitose's head snapped up. "You said it!"

"Then try SuperCoolSlim Yogurt!" Kintarou said, jumping around to face the audience, holding out the yogurt and flashing a cute smile that made Ryuzaki faint. "It's the only yogurt proven not only to taste GREAT, but to also help you slim down!"

"Let-me-see-that!" Chitose said in a robotic, totally unconvincing imitation of excitement. He was a terrible actor.

Kintarou held it out to Chitose and Chitose grabbed it, opened it, and took at sample out with his finger.

"Mmmmm," he said, grimacing at the lousy taste. "It's so delicious! And I'm already feeling thinner!"

"That's…good!" said Kintarou.

".....Yeah!" said Ishida.

There was another extremely prolonged and awkward pause. Backstage, Oshitari finally realized that he had missed his cue by several minutes because he had fallen asleep. "Oh, shit!" he muttered. But he had no choice but to get on the stage.

"Ahhh, I am the evil penguin!" said Oshitari, running onto stage and flapping his cardboard fins around pointlessly. "I am.....evil and…….stuff." he trailed off as he realized that this was making no sense to the audience

"I don't get it," Itsuki said.

Backstage, Shiraishi slapped a hand over his face. There was only one way to fix the situation…

"I am Shiraishi, the handsome hero!" Shiraishi declared, running onto stage with his hands straight out in front of him like he was Superman. "I am here to save you all from this dreadful and dangerous penguin!"

Although there was nothing about Oshitari that struck anyone as particularly dreadful or dangerous at this point, the audience accepted that this group had tried to put in drama and had just failed, but they sort of semi-commended the effort nonetheless.

"And now—I save you!" Shiraishi cried dramatically, undoing the bandages on his hands dramatically. "Die, fiend!"

Shiraishi started strangling Oshitari with the bandages. Unlike Sengoku's group though, there was no real intention to hurt, so Shiraishi let Oshitari go before the latter actually fainted.

"And the handsome hero has saved the day!" Shiraishi bellowed, striking a pose, while Ryuzaki sighed at his handsome-ness and clapped. "Let there be peace and yogurt for all!"

There was silence.

"The end," Ishida finally announced, suspecting that the audience didn't realize that the commercial was over since there had been so many other awkward pauses.

The applause was tentative at first, then more enthusiastic as people thought about how much effort these people had put into the planning, writing, and execution of this commercial.

"Bravo! Oh, well done, bravo!" Ryuzaki cried, wiping her eyes. "It was great!"

"That evil penguin part made no sense," Kaidoh said.

"Yeah, once we were actually up here presenting it, we realized that the evil penguin part didn't really make sense," Shiraishi explained. "But it somehow seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Story of my life," said Tezuka randomly.

"So what do they get?" Aoi demanded to know. "It wasn't that great, not more than a six."

"Yeah, I'd say five for sure," said Sengoku critically, rubbing his chin. "There was a definite lack of killer intent."

That made people shudder, but Ryuzaki disagreed.

"Ah, I don't know, maybe it's just the ovaries talking right now, but I liked it. I want to give them a ten."

"WHAT??!!"

"Surely you must be joking, Coach Ryuzaki!" Inui said dramatically. " 'A for effort', but as far as content goes it wasn't that great!"

"I dunno," Ryuzaki shrugged. "Besides the evil penguin, I thought the content was pretty good, too. I mean, I'm kind of convinced. I could slim down on this stuff, too. Plus, that Kintarou is so _cute._" She started making baby-faces at Kintarou and pinching his cheeks, which made Kintarou feel extremely uncomfortable, but he held still, hoping that she wouldn't see him if he stood frozen like a statue.

* * *

XxX

* * *

Like shooting people's heads off? Long for horrible parasites that lodge themselves in your bloodstream and turn you into one of them? Want an excuse to murder as many people as possible in a three minute period? Screw Call of Duty--Play Resident Evil!!

:)


	16. What Teammates?

Chapter 16- _What_ Teammates?

* * *

XxXxX

* * *

"Well, I have to say that all in all, I'm surprised by the way everything ultimately panned out. Some of the people who didn't seem like they had much potential really showed me something today." Ryuzaki winked at Sengoku's group, who blushed bashfully.

"And on the other hand, some people who had no reason whatsoever not to do well ended up failing." Ryuzaki adopted a cold tone and shot a glare across the room at a few of the other groups. Hiyoshi and Shinji at least had the decency to look slightly abashed, but Oshitari just stared up at the ceiling with a blank look on his face. He had gotten distracted by a spider that was making its way across the lighting fixture.

"So who wins?" Momoshiro finally asked in a hollow voice, though he wasn't sure he even wanted to know the answer. Radish had probably creamed them.

"A fine question! Let's do the tally!" Ryuzaki suggested.

_And so the final scores out of 10 are......Drumroll........_

**Radish's Groups: **  
Eiji— 3 points  
David-- .5 points  
Sengoku—9 points

**Cauliflower's Groups: **  
Gakuto— 11 points  
Marui— 3 points  
Jirou—0 points  
Kintarou—10 points  
Kamio—0 points

"Hmm…so Cauliflower earned 24 points over a total of five groups and Radish got 12.5 points over three groups, making their averages 4.8 and 4.2 respectively," Ryuzaki unnecessarily narrated, even though everyone had a clear view of the paper.

"So we win again!" Niou cackled gleefully. Cauliflower's team members started to do a victory dance choreographed by Gakuto, but Ryuzaki stopped them because everyone on Radish looked so depressed and dejected that their sorrow was actually melting the callous shell encasing her heart.

"What's this feeling inside?" Ryuzaki cried, clutching her chest.

Everyone looked at her in confusion, wondering if she was going to collapse like she had in the Senbatsu camp. But there was no way they'd get that lucky again.

"It's something I haven't felt for years..." Ryuzaki muttered. "I think it's...could it be...no.._.pity?!_"

"PITY?" This shocked the tennis players who had by now accepted that Ryuzaki did not have that thing called a 'soul'.

"No, it's more than pity. This is getting kind of stupid." Ryuzaki said, taking her hand off her heart and looking at Cauliflower. "You guys have won twice already. And I can't figure out how two people on your team got zeroes and you still managed to have a higher average." Cauliflower members nervously looked at one another, and Ryuzaki abruptly concluded. "You know what? This is bullshit; I say let's have Radish win this time!"

"We don't need your charity!" cried everyone from Radish in a last ditch attempt to preserve their masculinity, which they could feel circling the drain. But they were lying. They did need her charity.

"It's not charity, it's a simple choice!" Ryuzaki said crossly, all vestiges of her momentary sympathy vanishing. "This is _my_ competition and _I _decide who wins each round!" she had taken on an authorative voice.

"So you're basically admitting that the points have nothing to do with who wins?" Inui asked, just to clarify.

"More or less."

"Then why do we _bother_ tallying it up at all?" Atsushi asked in bewilderment.

"Because it's fun!" Ryuzaki snapped, already beginning to regret her kindness to Radish. "Are there any other stupid questions?"

"Does this mean that Radish wins for no apparent reason?" Sanada asked in a dull voice edged with resentment.

"Yes, I already said that; don't you listen?"

Sanada pulled the bill of his cap over his eyes. "Tarundoru," he muttered.

"Haven't you realized by now that the judging is completely subjective?" Saeki shrewdly pointed out to everyone. "Whoever she's in a better mood with at the moment wins. Our performance has nothing to do with it—we might as well do the minimum work possible."

"Saeki, shut up!" Ryuzaki screeched in alarm. She had been afraid that the boys were going to figure this fact out one of these days. Fortunately, only Fuji had been listening, and he never did shit _anyway_, so it wasn't like there was a huge loss or anything.

"So Radish finally doesn't fail at something. Congratulations," Ryuzaki said sourly.

Tezuka nodded. "Yes, see, this is just like the championship. We have to first lose two matches and then the rest are in the bag. I think we'll be winning from now on."

"Tezuka, just because you said that, your team is going to lose in the next round," Ryuzaki said angrily.

"Oh, come on, now!" Sengoku complained. "What's the point if you tell us the outcome in advance? We might as well not even DO the challenge, now!"

"Ever notice that that argument could be applied to this ENTIRE competition?" everyone screamed at Sengoku, who held up his hands and started to slowly back away.

"So it comes down to the ultimate question," Ryuzaki said. "Do I give you the fourth challenge right now or is there a brief period of respite before I start to ruin—I mean, before we start again?"

"RESPITE!" everyone shouted, but they really shouldn't have, because Ryuzaki is a nasty old hag and just because they said that, she chose the opposite option.

"But first…" she said.

"But first what?" they asked moodily.

"I…don't know. But it feels too sudden to dive right into the fourth challenge. I feel like we should rest for five minutes or so. Y'know. Relax. Chat a bit."

There was dead silence in the auditorium. Except for some crickets chirping, but those are always there, so no one paid much attention to them.

"What the _hell_ do you wanna talk about?" Shishido asked finally, speaking for everyone. They all nodded fervently.

"I mean…what's up with everyone?" Ryuzaki asked awkwardly. "I've spent so much time lately coming up with ways to ruin your lives that I haven't even really thought about you guys personally for a long time. What's been happening? How have your lives been?"

More silence.

"Doesn't _anyone_ have something to say?" Ryuzaki tried. "Remember, I'm only doing this because it's only prudent to have five minutes rest break before we start the next challenge. I suggest that you take full advantage of this time while I'm offering it because you won't get much more rest time the rest of this tournament."

"If you really wanted us to feel rested you would give us a day off." Yagyuu pointed out sourly. "The only reason you're doing this is so you can later point to it as a justification and say, "Remember that time I let you rest? Wasn't I nice?" And the answer is, no, you're _not_ nice, so stop being so pushy."

Shocked silence.

"That was even better than my data could do!" Inui said in surprise.

"Although that might also be because your data book is mainly comprised of sketches of reptiles and amphibians." Yanagi pointed out.

"Oh, yeah that reminds me!" Ryuzaki said suddenly snapping her fingers as Yanagi called attention to himself. "We don't have to just stand around for five minutes! We have something to do, because Cauliflower lost! Yanagi must get whipped!"

There was a gasp.

"Surely…surely you were kidding about that, though?" Yuuta said cautiously.

"I surely _wasn't_!" Ryuzaki snapped. "I keep my word on things; what kind of coach do you think I am?"

They looked around at each other.

"You…_really_ don't want to know the answer to that question," Yukimura said finally, smiling brightly.

She rolled her eyes, tapping her foot impatiently. "Yanagi, get your ass up here!"

He didn't move, naturally. He just stood there, nervously clutching his notebook. "I have to go to the bathroom—" he tried, inching away.

"Catch him!"

Sengoku and Oshitari were at his side in an instant and started dragging him towards the center stage.

"Excellent!" Ryuzaki fumbled around in her pockets as Yanagi drew nearer and nearer. "Now where did I put my whip?"

"HERE!" twelve boys took off their belts and offered them up frantically in unison.

"What is _wrong_ with you people?" Yanagi asked, from where he was pinned to the floor. "We have to stick together otherwise this evil hag will control us all! Teamwork the only chance we've got!"

"Oh, stuff it!" someone from Radish's side called. A sock was promptly stuffed into Yanagi's mouth.

"Here we go, then!" Ryuzaki said, lifting Touji's belt over her head, while everyone looked on excitement. Even the guys from Rikkaidai were excited. They were pretending to be all appalled because Yanagi was their_ teammate _and_ friend_ and all that, but secretly they were excited anyway.

"And now I intend to flay Yanagi within an inch of his life," Ryuzaki narrated, lifting the belt.

Yanagi's eyes widened in horror.

"Wait!" interrupted Inui.

"What now?" said Ryuzaki, ask Yanagi's eyes welled with grateful tears.

"Can you move a little to the left? I want to sketch this," said Inui simply, pushing his glasses up his nose and moving his pencil in his notebook.

"What? Yeah, sure; whatever," agreed Ryuzaki, taking a step to the left as Yanagi stared at his "friend" in shock. "I understand this is a going to be a fond memory for you all; so pay close attention! Now, let's begin!"

She was about to bring the whip down when suddenly there was a dramatic cry of "Nooooooooooooooooo!"

Everyone's head spun around to see that Kirihara had suddenly jumped to his feet. With a superhuman strength, he broke free of his restraining ropes and bounded over to where Yanagi was tied up, pulling a tennis racquet out of nowhere. He dove between Yanagi and the whip just a millisecond before the blow landed, protecting his sempai and himself with the tennis racquet. All of this in slow motion, of course.

When Kirihara opened his eyes, he found himself sprawled over Yanagi and everyone in the auditorium looking at him like he was crazy. Ryuzaki's whip was coiled on the netting of his racquet.

"Well, I guess this means you're volunteering yourself instead." Ryuzaki said unconcernedly, straightening up and disentangling the whip as if she had been expecting this. "That's fine by me. Yanagi, you're dismissed."

Kirihara laughed acidly. "You'll never get any of us!" he cried, getting off Yanagi with a triumphant grin. "Our teamwork and friendship run too deep to be uprooted by someone like you! My teammates would never let me get whipped!" he cried passionately.

"Actually, we would," said Yanagi matter-of-factly, getting neatly to his feet as he pulled the sock out of his mouth. "Sorry about that, kid."

Kirihara's eyes widened in horror as he looked from Yanagi to the rest of his Rikkaidai teammates. "You guys! How can you do this to me?!"

"We're sorry, Kirihara," said Yukimura apologetically as Yanagi trouped back over, unscathed. "We love you, but we love your suffering even more."

Kirihara frantically looked around for support from Kamio, but the redhead merely shrugged. "You're on your own on this one," he said.

"Nooooooo!" Kirihara cried again, but for a very different reason this time.

So instead of Yanagi, Ryuzaki flayed the noble martyr Kirihara within an inch of his life.

After this was over, everyone sort of stood around, wondering what to do next. Kirihara lay in a heap on the ground, breathing shallowly.

"Well, that was satisfying!" said Ryuzaki finally, stretching her arms over her head. "We all need a good dose of sick injustice every now and then! Wouldn't you say?"

"Oh YES!" cried all the other boys who had thoroughly enjoyed the show.

"I'm sueing!" Kirihara cried breathlessly, looking up with ravaged red eyes and started to stand up. "You won' get away with this, you witch!"

But Ryuzaki merely kicked him back down and continued, "On the other hand, we're now at a fork in the road. Either we can just get all the sadism out of our systems right now or we can change the subject and come back to it later."

"That sounds like a question for our readers," Yanagi noted, for he was in much a better mood ever since avoiding the whipping.

"What are _reedirz_?" Touji asked confusedly, frowning. "I hear that word all the time! What does it mean?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that question, for it falls below the acceptable IQ zone to merit discussion," Ryuzaki said.

"Awww. How far below?"

"Well below."

Touji shut his mouth.

"Anyway, I think that at this point Yanagi's right," Ryuzaki said frankly. "Where the next challenge goes is open to the readers. Do we get the sadism out of our systems right now or save some for later? Because either will do, really. What say you? Answer, readers!"

"Oh, come on, like readers ever listen to anything you really say," said Tezuka said skeptically, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Yeah, well, if your popularity says anything about it, then I guess you're right!" Ryuzaki retorted.

"OH, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrn!" everyone cried, even Sanada.

Tezuka frowned. "That insult wasn't even grammatically correct," he pointed out.

"Okay, but seriously," Ryuzaki continued, straightening her face out again. "Until we make a definite decision, we're stuck in this between-challenge limbo. And I have a feeling that my whip has enough energy to last in this limbo for a long, long time!" she added cheerfully.

"OH GOD!" Everyone screamed. They frantically looked around, searching for a television screen or some other method of appearing to the readers. "READERS, PLEASE VOTE! SAVE US!"

* * *

xXxXx

* * *

So what say you, readers? (assuming you exist)


	17. Glass Power

Chapter 17: **Glass Power**

* * *

XxXxX

* * *

"My God. I can't believe it's happening. I mean, this is weird, even for us!" Ryuzaki said in surprise, squinting at a letter in her hands.

"Why, what happened?" they asked, though they were just relieved that she was so absorbed that the whip lay forgotten by her side. Abruptly, she folded the letter and tucked it into her pocket. "I have an announcement!" she cried. "Apparently all the rest of fandom is ever more sadistic than I am, because they've agreed with my decision for what to do in the fourth challenge!"

"Yeeeeeeee---aww, no," everyone groaned as they thought it was going to be good news but were sorely disappointed.

"Does this mean I can have my belt back?" Touji, who was holding his pants up on both hips, asked irritably.

"What? Yeah, whatever. I guess we're done with the whipping for now…" she said, tossing it down to him. "But everyone pay attention, because I think this is one of the most poignant and interesting ideas I've ever had for a challenge! It's so good it almost gives me goosebumps!"

"You say that _every single time_," Tezuka pointed out, while everyone else rolled his eyes. "Yet the challenges only ever get worse and worse."

"Well, I'm serious this time!" she snapped. "Do you want to know how good it is? It's so good that there's _no way_ that anyone who _doesn't _have a good sense of humor _couldn't not_ like it!"

There was silence for a few moments. There were so many negative particles in that sentence that nobody could really understand what it meant. However, that had been Ryuzaki's goal, so she continued.

"Really, it's going to be super fun. However, I've decided that this challenge is for people who have glasses."

"I have some," Ichiuma said, withdrawing two wine glasses from his backpack.

"People who _wear_ glasses, moron," Shishido hissed, hitting him on the head while everyone else slapped their foreheads.

"Oh…" he replaced the glasses.

"Right. Well, as I was saying before Ichiuma lowered everyone's IQ," Ryuzaki continued, "this is a challenge offered solely to the people here who wear glasses."

"Why do you say 'offered' when it's obvious that everyone hates these challenges?" asked Momoshiro.

"Because you touch yourself," she said. "Now shut up. This is going to be one of the most super special awesome challenges ever. Those five of you who have glasses are lucky."

Oshitari raised his hand. "I only wear glasses for the smart-person effect," he said. "I don't actually need them and the lenses are just clear glass. Do I have to participate?"

She thought about it. "Yes."

"God damn it." he said.

"Wait, then why doesn't Touji have to participate?" Gakuto called from the sidelines, in defense of Oshitari.

"These are sunglasses, you douche. Take a good look." Touji said defensively, tapping his horrible bright green and blue sunglasses.

"Actually, the only reason I'm not making you compete is because whoever sold you those atrocities obviously robbed you," Ryuzaki said to Touji, grimacing. "Therefore, you've already been punished for them once."

"What!?" Touji asked flabbergasted. "What are you talking about?! These are the most badass sunglasses ever! Even Kamio said they were manly!"

"I was being sarcastic Touji..." Kamio muttered, looking shocked. "Man...this whole time you thought I actually liked them?"

"I'm so glad I wear contact lenses," Ryou said, observing of all this madness that he had just narrowly avoided as Touji and Kamio started arguing in the background.

"So all the people with glasses line up," Ryuzaki ordered. "And Echizen, too."

Echizen didn't even try to fight it this time. He was used to it.

The boys with eyeglasses rumbled and grumbled and eventually formed a sloppy line in front of Ryuzaki. It consisted of Tezuka, Inui, Yagyuu, Oshitari, Some Random Guy From St. Rudolph that no one had ever taken the time to learn the name of, and Echizen.

"Hmm, I somehow thought it would be more people," Ryuzaki said contemplatively, looking down the line of only six boys, one of whom didn't even have glasses. "I wonder if I should extend the category…"

"NO!" everyone bellowed, and surprisingly, she just shrugged. "Fine then. I am pleased to announce that you lucky four-eyed boys have the privilege to participate in…"

Dramatic pause.

"The Murder Challenge!"

_Silence on the set. A breeze from the open door ruffles the hair of the boys. A tumbleweed rolls by._

Tezuka: …

Inui: …

Yagyuu: …

Oshitari: …

St. Rudolph: …

Echizen: …

After this silence had persisted for over a minute, Ryuzaki finally broke it.

"….haha, just kidding!" she said.

Another pause.

"You weren't kidding, were you?" Tezuka asked shrewdly.

"No, not really." She shook her head. "But I was kind of hoping you guys would be more enthusiastic!"

"…about a _murdering_ challenge?" Inui's voice was level, but if one listened carefully, there was a hint of panic in it. Actually, the only person who _didn't_ seem at all nervous was Oshitari, who looked pleasantly surprised by the announcement of the challenge.

"Coach Ryuzaki, this is immoral," the guy from St. Rudolph said. "We cannot have a murdering challenge! I understand that you hate us, but this crosses the line!"

"Who _is_ this guy?" Ryuzaki asked in bewilderment, gesturing at the guy who had spoken. She looked over at the rest of Cauliflower questioningly.

"Beats me," said Yukimura, shrugging.

"I've been on your team since day one!" the kid shouted. "My name is Nomura!" he looked frantically at Yuuta. "_You_ know me!"

But Yuuta just shrugged as well. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"I've been on the St. Rudolph tennis team for three years!" he screamed.

"Well, I don't know who he is, but I'm going to call him Rudolph," said Ryuzaki plainly, shrugging. "And apparently he's competing since he has glasses."

Nomura looked close to tears, but they moved on since there were other people with more valid concerns at the moment.

"How is this legal?" Inui asked. "This is a foul and unnatural challenge!"

"Oh, don't worry about that; we're going to make it fun," said Ryuzaki said hurriedly.

"How can you possibly make murder _fun_?" Tezuka asked. "It's a terrible thing! Not to mention thoroughly illegal!"

"Actually, I find murder mildly funny as it is," said Oshitari, earning him several curious looks.

"Oh, will you all quit freaking out?" Ryuzaki exclaimed. "It's not like you're going to be killing people you _care_ about!"

"Oh, well THAT makes it SO much better!" everyone screamed.

"I refuse to compete," said Inui flatly. He took a step back.

"Oh, really?" Ryuzaki asked. "Well, fine then. In that case, I officially announce the Japanese Middle School Tennis Champions to be Rikk—"

"NO!" Inui shouted. "How can you do this? You can't hold the championship over our heads to force us to compete in a murdering challenge!"

"Will you at least let me explain it before you get your panties all in a twist?" Ryuzaki snapped. "Now listen to me. This is not conventional murder. Your……_targets,_ as we'll call them, are going to be things that people have been trying to get rid of for ages anyway. So it's more like you're doing the world a favor."

Contemplative moment.

"…_things_?" said Oshitari asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"…trying to get rid of for _ages_?" Yagyuu added.

"…_carrot sticks_?" asked Echizen, since he hadn't had a line yet.

"Yes," said Ryuzaki. "This is one of the most interesting challenges because it's only half a crime. The other half is great good deed to humanity and all of mankind!"

"Humanity and mankind mean the same thing," Yanagi said.

Ryuzaki shot him a glare, but Echizen saved the day by raising his hand.

"Can you be more specific? What kind of things are we supposed to murder?"

"Here." She pulled a black top hat out of nowhere, as this was her nature. "In this hat, there are several folded slips of paper naming some of the most annoying animated characters or creatures ever to existed that everyone wishes would just disappear. You'll each choose one of them at random, and then you have to try to kill your person. Got that?"

"Wait a minute…question." Yagyuu interrupted, as something occurred to him. "How are we supposed to kill them if they're animated characters? I mean, they don't technically _exist,_ do they?"

"Well, that's why it's a challenge!" Ryuzaki said brightly. "Come on, otherwise it would be too easy!"

Everyone exchanged confused looks. The instructions made no sense.

"Now come up here to select your person!"

Everyone sighed, but they knew that there was no point arguing, so with a certain level of trepidation, they all stepped forward and one by one, took slips of paper out of the bag.

"I think this might be the most bloodthirsty challenge we've had yet," Yukimura said in a tone of polite interest as he watched from the sidelines. "I do wish I could have competed."

Sanada looked at him. "Yukimura, sometimes you scare me," he said frankly.

"Then I'm doing my job." He smiled.

"And just for the record, that's the first and last time anyone will EVER say he wishes he could have competed in a challege!" Marui added in response to the way Ryuzaki had looked around in interest at hearing Yukimura's words.

The camera stayed on Marui for a moment too long. He looked around nervously. "Oh great, did I just foreshadow at something?"

Back at the ranch, the people with glasses had finished picking their papers.

"Can I ask why you delegated this challenge to people with glasses?" Eiji asked. "I mean, aren't people with glasses usually nerds and therefore less likely to behave riskily by murdering someone?"

"Yeah, that's why it's funny," said Ryuzaki crossly. "It's irony, see?"

"You're kidding. You do irony?" they asked in surprise.

"Of course! You didn't think I just pick the groups of delegates at random, did you? I always think about irony and symbolism and all that crap! Good Lord, there might even be a little alliteration…" she trailed off thoughtfully and saw that everyone was looking at her expectantly. "Well, what are you waiting for? Open your papers!"

They took deep breaths and after exchanging nervous looks, opened their slips of paper. Looks of surprise, confusion, and disbelief crossed all of their faces. In that order, too.

"…well, what did you get?" Ryuzaki barked impatiently. "You are to announce your targets now."

"….the Cheetos Cheetah," said Tezuka blankly, staring at his paper.

"Oh, good, I hate that guy," said Ryuzaki cheerfully. "He's always talking about how cheesy everything is, but _he's_ the cheesy bastard! Now we'll never have to hear his stupid commercials again. How about you, Rudolph? What'd you get?"

"The energizer bunny," Nomura said darkly. He was still pissed off that nobody remembered him.

"Now what did _he_ ever do?" they all wondered aloud, Ryuuzaki included.

"What do you mean? You _wrote _these!" Ichirou shouted, flailing his arms.

"Quiet. What about the rest of you?" asked Ryuuzaki.

"Ronald McDonald," said Oshitari.

"Awwwww…." whined Kirihara, who had suddenly regained consciousness, from the background, "I love Happy Meals!"

"Nope, Ronald's got to go," Jackal agreed, nodding sagely. "The guy's got more sex offenses than every other pedophile in the U.S. combined."

No one asked how Jackal knew this.

"May I ask how the hell I'm supposed to kill the Tiger from Frosted Flakes?" asked Inui calmly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"You think _you've_ got it bad?" Yagyuu looked pissed. "I got the Microsoft Paperclip!"

There was silence. "Who's _that?_" Momoshiro finally asked what everyone was wondering.

"You know!" exclaimed Ryuzaki vehemently. "The annoying paperclip that no one likes because it's always telling you what to do when you're working on a Microsoft document! It checks your grammar, spelling, diction, formatting, and offers suggestions to improve your writing."

"…"

"…..and yet we want to kill it." Yagyuu said, just to clarify.

"Yes. It's annoying," said Ryuzaki definitively. "Never shuts up."

Yagyuu shook his head silently, and Ryuzaki took that as a sign of acceptance, so she moved on.

"Well, I trust that now everyone sees how bothersome these animated victims are, we can't deny that they deserve to die," Ryuzaki said. "Meaning that this challenge is legitimate. You all have your victims and you have one week to kill them."

"Only?" asked Tezuka sourly.

"It should be plenty!" she exclaimed. "These things take planning, but you don't want to over-think it. This challenge is very open in terms of format; you can get the job done however you want as long as it is finished. At the end you will be scored by how well planned and neatly the job was done."

She paused for breath.

"And…I think that's it. Are there any questions? Comments? Problems?"

"Can we have our teammates help us like last time?" Oshitari asked.

She thought about it. "Yeah…I suppose that's acceptable. And since it's such a touch challenge, I'll even let people on the same team share helpers. Anything other questions?"Then she suddenly realized something. "Echizen, you haven't spoken this whole time! You didn't even tell us your victim; is there a problem?"

"…yes," said Echizen, looking up from where he had been eerily silent for the last five minutes, staring at his piece of paper with a blank look on his face, "Yeah, I've got a goddamn problem!"

"Well, what _is_ it?" she asked impatiently.

Echizen flashed his slip of paper at her. "I got myself!"

There was dead silence.

Then as if on cue, everyone burst into wild laughter. However, Ryuzaki remained serious.

"I already explained the rules of this challenge," she said simply to Echizen, "you are required to carry out the task I have given you."

"But how can I kill myself?!" he shouted.

"You'll find lots of answers to that question if you look hard enough," said Ryuzaki calmly. "Now, if no one else has any questions that don't suck, I'd like to dismiss you all for the day."

"Yippee!" everyone cried, starting to scatter immediately. Even the people who had been assigned to the fourth challenge didn't seem to upset, because at least they had a week before they had to seriously worry about it.

Echizen just stayed behind, gaping wordlessly at his paper.

* * *

ooo

* * *

a/n

Oh, how we all detest the Microsoft Paperclip.


End file.
